Panel 1: The Autonomous Curator

JJ Charlesworth – writer and critic as well as reviews editor at ART REVIEW magazine
JJ Charlesworth has been writing about contemporary art since he left Goldsmiths College London in 1996, where he studied art. He now writes regularly on contemporary art for magazines such as Art Monthly, Modern Painters, Time Out London and ArtReview magazine, where he is associate editor. He is tutor in painting at the Royal College of Art, and is currently researching a doctoral thesis on British art criticism in the 1970s. His only serious act of curating was the surprise hit exhibition ‘Fusion Now!’(2007), about how art and nuclear energy are both really good things.

Susan Hiller – artist and writer
Susan Hiller is known for an innovative artistic practice including group participation works such as Dream Mapping (1974); the museological/archival installations Fragments (1978), and Enquiries/Inquiries (1973 & 1975). Four of her major large scale installation works are currently exhibited at Tate. Susan has co-edited numerous books about curating. The latest publication in the successful Producers series contains three conversations between leading contemporary curators. The Producer series brings together key practitioners in the curatorial arena to discuss their craft before an audience of artists, students and art professionals as well as the ongoing debate about the nature of contemporary curatorship. As well continuing with her independent artistic pratcice Susan is also Baltic Chair in Contemporary Art at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne.

Marie-Anne McQuay – Spike Island Galleries
Marie-Anne McQuay is a practicing curator and undertook a Masters in Curating at Goldsmiths University. She has worked for FACT (Foundation for Art & Creative Technology) in Liverpool, developing collaborative commissions with artists that include Nick Crowe, Kristin Lucas and Dias & Riedweg. Since 2007 she has been working for the galleries of Spike Island working across their exhibition, residency and public programmes. She has frequently been at the forefront of a number of Spike Island’s major exhibitions such as Craig Mulholland’s solo show Grandes et Petites Machines (2008) and Working Things Out (2007) a group show with new work by Milo Brennan, Richard Forster, Sara MacKillop, Sophie Macpherson, Haroon Mirza, Jonathan Owen and Andy Wake. Alongside her curatorial work Marie-Anne is an established independent writer.

Emma Dexter – Curator
Since 2007 Emma Dexter has held the position of Director of Exhibitions at Timothy Taylor Gallery in Mayfair. Prior to that Emma held significant posts in both large and medium scale public art institutions such as Senior Curator at Tate Modern and Deputy Director of Exhibitions at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA).She has also curated solo exhibitions by British and international artists: such as Mark Wallinger (1991), Gary Hume (1995) and Irene and Jake and Dinos Chapman (1996). Furthermore, she was the first curator at Tate Modern to undertake a photography exhibition: ‘Cruel and Tender’ (2003) with Thomas Weski. Emma is also responsible for many publications to come out of her curatorial work such as Bruce Nauman: Raw Materials (2004).

Emily Pethick – The Showroom London
Emily Pethick is the Director of The Showroom, London. From 2005-2008 she was the Director of Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory, in Utrecht, The Netherlands. From 2003-2004 she was curator at Cubitt, London, where she initiated the annual self-publishing fair Publish and be Damned with Kit Hammonds. She has contributed to numerous catalogues and magazines, including Artforum, Frieze, dot dot dot, GAS, texte zur kunst, and Untitled, and edited books, such as Casco Issues X: The Great Method, with Peio Aguirre, and Casco Issues XI with Marina Vishmidt and Tanja Widmann.

Panel 2: Mediation as Production
- Collaboration, Authorship and Contingency

Sound Threshold
Sound Threshold was established in 2007 by Daniela Cascella and Lucia Farinati, as a long-term research project which explores the relationships between site, sound and text. The project is grounded on a shared background in literature, experimental music, art history, and on over a decade of experience in writing and in curating visual and sonic arts projects. Since its inception, Sound Threshold has developed a programme of events, talks and artists’ commissions in collaboration with international organisations: Music and Sound Through The Landscape, Italy 2007/08; The Listening Project, London, 2010.
www.soundthreshold.org

Simon Hollington and Kypros Kyprianou
The social and political implications of manned flight in the twentieth century were the subject of Goodbye Vile Earth!, SHP (2008), combining archive and anecdote from a former secret military research establishment. The trope of ‘when science goes wrong’ in The Invisible Force Field Experiments, Artsway, 2003, was extended for lovers of conspiracy theory as The Invisible Force Field Experiments Accident Report, ICA, London and Mop Projects, Sydney, 2005, and ‘New Forest Pavilion’, Venice Biennale in 2005. The Nightwatchman, Arts Catalyst/Scan, London, 2008, charted the changing public perceptions of the nuclear power industry, contrasting with how the industry sells itself to the nation.
www.electronicsunset.org

Neil Webb
Neil Webb is a practising artist based in Sheffield working predominantly with sound. His practice includes sound installation, video, performance, curation,CD releases under the name bocman and is a founder member of Host Artists Group. In 2007 the making of a multi-channel audio visual installation in collaboration with Ron Wright titled The Breach and the making of the multi-channel sound installation The Stars in Us All for Bloc Space in Sheffield. In 2008 Neil was commissioned to create a new audio installation in Sheffield’s Winter Gardens. Titled Adrift this was part of the city wide event Sheffield 08 Yes, No Other Options. He has recently completed new tracks with Ron Wright and a piece for the audio project Host 9: Otherliness.
www.neilwebb.com
www.hostoffice.org.uk

Ron Wright
He is a founder member of HULA, an experimental multimedia band, sound Designer for film and awarded Best Independent Feature at Raindance festival, Rotterdam 2007. Audio-visual installations, include “Hylo”, a retrospective National Gallery tour of collaborations with video artist Andy Eccleston; “Requiem”, featuring a French horn being dissolved in a clear tank of nitric acid; “Acousma”, a quasi-paranormal opera generated from MRI brain scans and “Spindrift”, which uses boroscope technology to journey through the inside of orchestral instruments. Ron’s sonic research is concerned with sound in relation to space for cinema, screen and environment exploring real and imagined landscapes and the interrelationship between physical and psychological terrain. Live performance include surround sound presentations of Requiem and Spindrift at Consortium gallery and The Lloyd Hotel, Amsterdam December 2007.
www.ronwright.org

Panel 3: Curating Friction
- Between Complicity and Contingency

Dr Andrea Phillips
Dr Andrea Phillips is Reader in Fine Art at the Department of Art, Goldsmiths, University of London, and Director of the Doctoral Research Programme. From 2006-2009 she was Director of Curating Architecture, a think tank based in the Art Department that investigated the aesthetic and political relationship between architecture, curating and concepts of public display www.gold.ac.uk/visual-art/curating-architecture. Dr Phillips publishes widely in art and architecture journals, artist’smonographs and collections on politics, philosophy and contemporary art practice, and speaks internationally on art, architecture, politics, institution-making and urban regeneration. Current research projects include the aesthetic formatting of transnational space and its relation to contemporary art, the future and implications of practice-based research, and ‘Building Democracy’, a set of publications and discussions that forefront critiques of participation in contemporary art and architecture. Dr Phillips is Chair of Research in the Department of Art, Goldsmiths.

Munira Mirza
Munira Mirza advises the Mayor on his strategy for Arts and Culture in the Capital focusing on the Cultural Olympiad and 2012, arts and music education, supporting the cultural sector through the recession, and greater access to culture for all Londoners.
She has worked for the Royal Society of Arts, Policy Exchange and Tate and taught at the University of Kent and University of East London. Her PhD in Sociology (University of Kent, 2009) examined developments in UK cultural policy and multiculturalism. She edited ‘Culture Vultures: Is UK arts policy damaging the arts?’ and co-authored the report ‘Living Apart Together: British Muslims and the Paradox of Multiculturalism’. She was a founding member of the Manifesto Club. Munira is a member of Arts Council England, London Regional Council, MLA London, and the Renaissance London Board.

Roman Vasseur
Roman Vasseur is an artist and is currently part time Senior Lecturer in the School of Fine Art, Kingston University. Vasseur’s works and provocations often re-perform epic, filmic, and political narratives via specific socio-economic realities. The works redeploy ‘culture’ as a contingent component of the grand narratives of democracy, for example advocating the ritualized death of a mural artist as an alternative to the use of ‘art’ in urban regeneration. Vasseur has exhibited at the ICA, EAST International 06, and Die Neue Aktionsgalerie, Berlin. He has recently completed a two-year role as Lead Artist for Harlow New Town.