Networks

The Centre’s networks connect and sustain researchers and professionals engaging with British art across an array of contexts, including museums, galleries, heritage, art spaces and live and online programmes as well as academic studies. Reflecting our commitment to champion new ways of understanding British art history and culture, our networks are designed to foster knowledge sharing; create spaces for people to experiment, inquire and grow professionally; and help develop an expanded sense of community in the sector.

The Centre supports three ongoing networks: the Doctoral Researchers Network (DRN), the Early Career Researchers Network (ECRN) and the British Art Network (BAN), which focuses on curatorial practice and theory. The Networks team also organises two programmes aimed at developing relevant skills and knowledge: ‘British Art in Motion’, which provides training and mentoring for a selected group of undergraduate students leading to the production of short films on British art, as well as the ‘Art Trade Forum’, which brings together emerging researchers and professionals for a series of behind-the-scenes tours and talks during London Art Week. The team is additionally responsible for delivering the programme of Drawing Room Displays at the Centre, with three new displays in 2022–23 exploring themes reflected in the Archives & Library collections and the history of the Centre and its home at no. 16 Bedford Square.

The strategic development and programming of the individual networks are led by Convenors. In 2022–23, the DRN was led by Co-Convenors Claudio di Tosta (University of Warwick) and Lauren Houlton (University of Westminster), and the ECRN by Co-Convenors Nick Mols (Cardiff University) and Alex Gushurst-Moore (University of Cambridge). Along with individual programmes of events exploring research skills, funding and professional development questions, both groups organised exhibition visits and worked together on the joint symposium ‘Expanding the Field: Rethinking Methodologies in British Art Research’. Featuring presentations from doctoral and emerging researchers in British art, the symposium was notable for exposing the intersections between practice-based and more established forms of research, as well as the growing role of new media, participatory research models and curatorial engagement in British art studies.

The BAN, supported by the Centre alongside Tate, with additional public funding provided by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, marked its ten-year anniversary in 2022. During 2022–23, Martin Myrone continued as Convenor of the British Art Network, having taken up the role of Head of Grants, Fellowships & Networks at the Centre in July 2022. The BAN team, based at the Centre and at Tate, has overseen the continuing growth of the network, supporting thirteen Research Groups focused on different aspects of curatorial practice and theory; fifteen separate Seminars providing spaces for more experimental or incubatory thinking; and the Emerging Curators Group, which brings together fifteen individuals to share their experiences and develop their thinking about curatorial practice over a tenmonth programme. To mark the anniversary of the network, BAN organised an extended annual conference in November 2022, featuring a series of reflections on the recent past and possible futures for British art curating, and the premiere of a newly commissioned documentary film, Unravelled, by Niyaz Saghari, which is freely available online. In partnership with the Yale Center for British Art, BAN organised its first Curatorial Forum in October 2022. This residential programme brought together a group of British art curators from the UK, Australia and the US for an intense programme of gallery and museum visits in New Haven, Boston, Providence and New York. Having started in 2012 with just over 300 members, BAN’s membership numbers have continued to rise steeply, from 1,350 in June 2022 to more than 1,800 in June 2023.

As the growth of BAN’s membership numbers reflects, the Centre’s networks play an increasingly important role in connecting and supporting researchers, curators, artists and educators, and expanding the field of British art studies to encompass creative, curatorial and more experimental perspectives alongside traditional forms of research and publication.