The Arts Council Collection are delighted to be working with the Art Fund again this year to develop a series of joint events designed to provide an informal forum for curators from around the country to meet and network.
There are six Curators’ Day events organised every year, each with a special focus, either looking at particular areas of professional practice or visiting important exhibitions with talks from artists, curators and specialists on a range of topics.
The next three in the series will happen throughout autumn 2018 and will cover a range of topics. The first event on the 15 November will explore the National Partnership exhibition Women Power Protest at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, which commemorates the centenary of women gaining the right to vote, and uses women’s suffrage as a starting point to trace some of the legacies of protests against inequality. The day will begin with a tour of the exhibition led by Birmingham curator Emalee Beddoes-Davis, followed by talks from Eliza Gluckman (co-founder of A Woman’s Place and until recently curator at the New Hall collection of women’s art in Cambridge), exhibiting artist Michelle Williams Gamaker, and Senior Curator, Arts Council Collection, Natalie Rudd.
The second in the autumn series will be hosted at The Hepworth Wakefield on the 30 November and will investigate a range of innovative approaches to collaborating with schools. Members of the Learning team at The Hepworth will reflect on their recent contributions to schools’ engagement through their School Prints project, whereby six contemporary artists were commissioned to make a series of auto-lithographs to be gifted to local schools alongside a dedicated engagement offer. Other highlights include insights from Gill Hart, Head of Learning at The National Gallery, London on their hugely successful Take One Picture scheme, and reflections from Laura Woodfield (Art UK) on a national initiative to take sculpture into schools.
The third autumn Curators’ Day will be held at Artes Mundi in Cardiff on Wednesday 4 December. Artes Mundi is the largest art prize in the UK and this year, the exhibition brings together five international artists who directly engage with everyday life through their work and explore contemporary social issues across the globe. Joining the Curators’ Day are this year’s selectors, Nick Aikins and Artes Mundi Director, Karen MacKinnon. Nick is a curator at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven where he leads the research programme Deviant Practice. He was curator of the widely praised exhibition The Place is Here in 2018.
Our Curators’ Days are free, however places are limited and priority will be given to curators or those working with Collections in museums, galleries and historic buildings in the UK.
For more information and to register your interest, please click here.
Please note: this year you can only register interest for one place per email address, per event.