Emerging Curators Group

The new Emerging Curators Group have been meeting and planning their workshops and individual research projects. Here the individual members take the opportunity to present themselves and their research interests.

Chiedza Mhondoro is currently a post-graduate student in eighteenth century British art at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her research interests lie in the visual and material culture produced in the trans-Atlantic world, focusing on Britain’s connection to North America and the Caribbean, and its positioning in a global context. She also traces the resonances of this complex art history in the work of contemporary British artists.

Chiedza values the ability to incorporate varied perspectives into British and international art historical narratives at a time when curators, academics and others within arts institutions are increasingly being called to participate in a nuanced dialogue on the social, political and cultural experience of our localities. She looks forward to the critical exchange and sharing of expertise within her Emerging Curators Group cohort during the completion of their collaborative project.

Clare Gormley is a curator and researcher based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is Head of Programmes and Partnerships at Belfast Photo Festival. Previously, Clare was Assistant Curator at The MAC Belfast, where she worked across the visual arts programme, curating a range of exhibitions including the group show, ‘On Refusal: Representation & Resistance in Contemporary American Art’ (2019). Prior to this, she held curatorial and research positions at institutions including TATE; Pangolin London; Catalyst Arts; and Islington Exhibits, and has worked as an independent curator for organisations such as PS² and Outburst Queer Arts Festival. Clare is a graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art (MA), and the Glasgow School of Art (BA). Clare is the founder and co-convener of the Northern Irish Art Research Group as part of the British Art Network.

Harvey Dimond is a British-Barbadian artist, writer and curator based between Glasgow, Scotland and Athens, Greece. Currently working independently, they produce exhibitions, public lectures and community events. During their studies at The Glasgow School of Art, they co-founded the GSA People of Colour Collective, in order to create networks of support and solidarity for people of colour in higher education in Glasgow. They write about the historical and contemporary intersections of colonialism, queerphobia and the climate crisis.

Ellie Tait is a North Easterner whose work is around issues of identity and representation. Ellie helps with understanding of different perspectives to reach new audiences, be welcoming and avoid inadvertent discrimination.

Ellie’s work encourages a move away from acceptance of anthropological mindsets to emancipatory approaches - so participatory work is not just informed by community links but shaped by the community from the outset. Reframing perspectives is the heartbeat of Ellie’s practices. As a critical friend Ellie gently challenges and encourages you to stretch and grow through supportive and constructive conversations. Ellie throws a spotlight on artificial institutional, community and personal hierarchies that underpin inequitable approaches and stifle change. Ellie champions supporting artists who are facing barriers and helps with understanding of why people can be rightfully distrustful of the arts sector. This non-traditional bio is an equitable approach Ellie uses to focus on the benefits people bring.

Janet Couloute has a practice and academic background in social work and art history. Believing that the visual arts are particularly adept at stimulating debate, Janet has used her art historic interests to encourage students to openly engage with complex and controversial subjects such as the impact of racism and anti-oppressive practice. Similarly, as a Tate gallery guide, acutely aware of the Eurocentric ideals that underpin the curatorial and art historic retelling of British art histories, one of Janet’s proudest achievements was to introduce for the first time, since the guided tours conception, a series of African heritage tours that seek to fill in the gaps regarding Britain’s colonial past and present. More recently Janet has completed a PhD thesis entitled, Visual Images of Madness and Insanity in European artistic traditions from the seventeenth to eighteenth century. Highlighting the dearth of representations of black emotionality in European artistic canons, the focus of Janet’s research will be on reimaging and reimagining John Simpson’s, Head of a man, (Ira Frederick Aldridge?) by applying Fredrick Douglas’ revisionist aesthetic theory of portraiture.

Jess Starns is an artist whose creative process is participatory, collaborative and inclusive with a focus on disability and neurodiversity. Jess completed her Inclusive Arts Practice MA at the University of Brighton where Jess and 8 other participants curated the Neurodiversity Museum. Jess is the founder of ‘Dyspraxic Me’, is experienced with supporting young people and works within museums. Jess was awarded a place on the Shaw Trust ‘Power 100’ 2018 list of the most influential and inspirational disabled people in Britain.

Lauren Craig (She/her/hers) is a social media shy, internet curious cultural futurist based in London. Her polymathic practice encompasses her experiences as an artist, independent cultural researcher, and curator. She has a background in ethical, social and environmental entrepreneurship and reproductive justice. Her current practices as a full spectrum doula and celebrant satisfy an interest in contemporary celebration and commemoration alongside a desire to build event-based/long-lasting creative, collaborative and caring communities. Inspired by archives, lived experience and futurity her work transverses performance, installation, experimental art writing to moving image and photography recent screenings at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Goldsmiths (2020) and Tate Britain (2019) and talks at Tate, British Art Network, Women’s Art Library. Craig’s curatorial practice emerges from her conceptual thought leadership and manifests various collaborative and reparative modalities from practice-based research to publication and exhibition. Currently co-curating a survey show for Rita Keegan at South London Gallery, Autumn 2021

Lisa Kennedy is a curator with experience working across the museum, arts and education sectors. As part of this programme, Lisa will be delving into one of her (many) research interests, focusing on better understanding relevance within the context of museums and galleries. Lisa seeks to engage with documentary photographers and filmmakers through qualitative approaches to hear their thoughts and perspectives centred on two themes: 1) The relationship between British art and notions of British identity and 2) the role of British art in a post-Brexit world. Drawing from her studies in History and Socially Engaged Practices in museums and galleries, Lisa is keen to bridge research, perspective and lived experiences authentically within this broader conversation around relevance.

Lorna Rose is a developing arts practitioner whose interests lie in Black contemporary art and questioning the structures and processes that marginalise Black creatives. Lorna is particularly interested in the place and experiences of Black British curators and how the curatorial process can be reimagined. Lorna is currently undertaking a research and development project called ‘Spaces to Speak’, to elevate and profile the voices of Black creatives in Plymouth. Lorna also works at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. Lorna has a passion for social justice and equity and has extensive experience of working in the voluntary sector, primarily working with and advocating for, adults and young people from marginalised groups. Listening, laughing and being part of conversations that create change, is integral to who Lorna is.

Marta Marsicka is a curator and art historian based in Birmingham. She works as Programme Coordinator at Centrala gallery, creating and implementing on and offsite events and exhibitions. Her interests and practice involve Central and Eastern European art, history of political art and issues surrounding identity and representation. Recently, she has been involved in ‘In-between-spaces’ research project (University of Birmingham, Centrala), focusing on the underrepresentation of CEE artists in British creative economy. Marta’s goal as an arts practitioner is to question the status quo and make the British art scene as diverse as its society.

Dr Prerona Prasad is Curator of The Heong Gallery at Downing College, Cambridge, where she has worked since January 2016. Prerona started off as the Exhibitions and Programming Manager, before turning her hand to curation. She has curated or co-curated eight exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. Since March 2020, her focus has been divided between the curatorial and operational challenges thrown up by COVID-19, and shaping future programming for the Gallery. The rupture caused by the pandemic has led to new thinking about gaps in the exhibitions programme and ways in which to take the Gallery’s offer online. She hopes that being part of the Emerging Curators’ Group will spark new ideas and generate insights through dialogue with other curators across the country. For her project, she will define the methodological and critical parameters of an alternative ‘British Art’ season of exhibitions, programmed for 2023-4.

Ryan Kearney is a curator and writer based in Nottingham. His on-going research centres on queer night-time space, with a focus on gentrification, memory and crossgenerational exchange. As part of the Emerging Curators Group, Ryan will consider how oral history can be used to document unrecorded LGBTQI+ space, and how a collaboration between participant, researcher and artist can translate architectural recollection into visual record. Ryan is Programme Assistant of Public Programmes and Research at Nottingham Contemporary where he assists the research and production of discursive events. Previously, he was co-curator at Recent Activity from 201719 and has delivered projects at Birmingham Hippodrome; Galerija Vartai; Parafin; Block Universe; and Grand Union. Ryan’s writing features in Frieze and this is tomorrow.

Sam Metz is an artist and curator based in the north of England. They studied Architecture and Critical Theory at University of Nottingham and have previously trained in physical theatre. They currently work at BEYOND Arts and Pyramid of arts in arts development for adults with learning disabilities as well as being a freelance artist and researcher. As an emerging curator Sam is influenced by disabilityled approaches to interpretation, particularly focusing on sensory modalities of understanding supported by a research grant from Sustainability Health Environment Development (S-H-E-D) and Necessity. As a neurodivergent artist and curator with sensory processing differences, Sam creates work in non-verbal ways that begin and end in movement and embodied interactions without recourse to traditionally privileged verbal and written forms of communication.

Siobhan McLaughlin is an artist, freelance curator and researcher. She is the curator of Alan Davie: Beginning of a Far-off World, a centenary exhibition held at Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh (January-March 2021, currently postponed). In 2020 she researched and wrote 160 short artist biographies for the Jay and W. Gordon Smith Collection of Scottish Art, a book which sits alongside an exhibition currently on at the Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh. Her curatorial research focuses predominantly on postwar Scottish Art and opening up private collections to the public, with an interest in tackling elitism and accessibility to the arts. Through the ECG, she aims to research the possibilities of non-hierarchical, accessible and feministdriven models as alternatives to the established art institutions that currently dominate the cultural sphere.

Umulkhayr Mohamed (she/her) is a Welsh Somali artist, writer, and curator. Her artistic practice involves creating primarily artist moving image and performance work that explores the tension present between enjoying the act of wandering between emancipatory temporalities and a functional need to position oneself in the now. Umulkhayr will be using her time as a part of British Art Network’s Emerging Curator Group to explore how curators should learn from the legacy of ‘political blackness’ and how it manifested in the Black British Art Movement, in curating Black British Art since this movement. She is currently working within Public Programming at Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales, where she is a part of the core creative team working on ‘The Future has a Past’ an exhibition that imagines the future of Wales. She is also the lead curator of Lates: PITCH BLACK, a collaboration between AC-National Museum Cardiff and Artes Mundi that will be a multi-artform celebration of Blackness as boundless and infinite. In addition to joining BAN’s Emerging Curators Group Umulkhayr is also a member of Black Curators Collective, a collective of Black women and non-binary curators working across the UK.