I am an international social practice art, placemaking and museums expert, and a visionary, dynamic and people-focused leader with 20-plus years working across the arts. A natural communicator, I have a proven record of making things happen from an ambitious starting point. I offer a powerful and global network, renowned professional expertise, a co-creation disposition, vocational passion, and intellectual and emotional integrity. I hold sacrosanct the power of art and the museum to transform self and society and have found my vocation working at the intersection of art, place and museums.
Projects
- Tate ExchangeTate Exchange is a space and a programme at Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and online for everyone to debate and reflect upon contemporary topics and ideas, get actively involved, think through doing, and make a difference. We work in response to an annual theme, and to the question, ‘what happens when art and society meet?’ We do this through collaboration with colleagues from across Tate, a community of Associate organisations, artists and our visitors. Founded in 2016, Tate Exchange was the fi
Work history
Head of Tate ExchangeTATE
Bankside, London SE1 9TG, UKFull Time
Shared lead of Division within a collaborative leadership model, taking it through pervasive restructuring, purpose-resetting and internal advocacy; senior management, Tate Modern and Tate Executive; vision/strategy/development of Tate Exchange socially engaged art platform and spaces across Tate sites, including its remodelling/restructure/refinancing, and initiating and securing its status as a Research Centre, local community mutual aid hub, and institutional change innovation lab. Manage a team of c20 museum educator-activists and 60-plus professional relationships and have fostered deeper relationships with Curatorial and sector colleagues.
Key achievements:
Promotion within 3-years in post
Creation of Tate Exchange as a community of practice as a practice-based Research Centre, and of its pioneering practice-process archive
Initiator, Learning and Research Division practice ecology remodelling and ontology
Co-curator Tania Bruguera Tate Modern Hyundai Turbine Hall £1M commission and Tate Modern Boilerhouse naming after local community activist, Natalie Bell
Introducer, bespoke agile working across Tate
Initiator and director, Power to Change, £1M-plus 3-year intersectional justice programme
Creator/curator, ‘Digital Discursive’ socially engaged art digital practice
Initiator/manager, Division at home, return to work and change management health and wellbeing programme
Creator, Tate Exchange curatorial vision
Collaborative PhDs supervision x 3 (museums & co-creation / radical archive practice)
Instigated new evaluation methodology
Created museum partnership Theory of Change
Head of Tate ExchangeTATE
Bankside, London SE1 9TG, UKFull Time
Shared lead of Division within a collaborative leadership model, taking it through pervasive restructuring, purpose-resetting and internal advocacy; senior management, Tate Modern and Tate Executive; vision/strategy/development of Tate Exchange socially engaged art platform and spaces across Tate sites, including its remodelling/restructure/refinancing, and initiating and securing its status as a Research Centre, local community mutual aid hub, and institutional change innovation lab. Manage a team of c20 museum educator-activists and 60-plus professional relationships and have fostered deeper relationships with Curatorial and sector colleagues.
Key achievements:
Promotion within 3-years in post
Creation of Tate Exchange as a community of practice as a practice-based Research Centre, and of its pioneering practice-process archive
Initiator, Learning and Research Division practice ecology remodelling and ontology
Co-curator Tania Bruguera Tate Modern Hyundai Turbine Hall £1M commission and Tate Modern Boilerhouse naming after local community activist, Natalie Bell
Introducer, bespoke agile working across Tate
Initiator and director, Power to Change, £1M-plus 3-year intersectional justice programme
Creator/curator, ‘Digital Discursive’ socially engaged art digital practice
Initiator/manager, Division at home, return to work and change management health and wellbeing programme
Creator, Tate Exchange curatorial vision
Collaborative PhDs supervision x 3 (museums & co-creation / radical archive practice)
Instigated new evaluation methodology
Created museum partnership Theory of Change
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Skills
- Events
- Visual Arts
- Craft
- Public Art
- Sculpture
- Copywriting
- Editing
- Journalism
- Fine Art
- Blogging
- Problem Solving
- Project Management
- Strategic Planning
- Creative Thinking
- Ideas Development
- Social Change
- Art
- Art Commissioning
- Community Art
- Art Curation
- Art Consulting
- Museum Education
- Placemaking
Education
U
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PhDUniversity of Brighton
- Brighton, United Kingdom
PhD, Making places: performative arts practices in the city. Published as Arts in Place: The Arts, the Urban and Social Practice (Routledge, 2017).
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MScUniversity of Brighton
- Brighton, United Kingdom
MSc Psychosocial Studies (High Merit), University of Brighton, p/t 2009-11; specialised in the psychosocial role of art and artists, ecoart and the grassroots agency of arts in urban placemaking.
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Awards
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Career highlightsDr Cara Courage
- Restructured museum division / remodelled centre practice and governance through 2020-ongoing syndemic
- International museum community engagement/social practice/co-creation expert advisory/thought-leader
- Global placemaking thought-leader/publisher/researcher
- Senior Fellow Institute of Place Management
- 200-plus international conference keynotes, presentations, papers, guest lectures
- 1000-capacity Hay Literary Festival presentationD
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Key publications and mediaDr Cara Courage
Books: Editor, The Routledge Handbook of Placemaking (Routledge, 2021); Co-editor, Creative Placemaking and Beyond (Routledge, 2018); Author, Arts in Place: The Arts, the Urban and Social Practice (Routledge, 2017)
Recent papers: Museums Interrupted: Museums, Placemaking and Civil Engagement to advance equity in innovation and change; The Digital Discursive: social practice art online; Power to Change: what is within the gift of the museum?; Learning Together: creative learning and co-creation; Art Museums and the Idea of Placemaking; Situating Self: co-creating spaces and places; Placemaking as Radical Practice: community is expert; Ways of Knowing: the museum and plural knowledges; The Museum as Relational Object; In Search of Data: evaluating social practice in museums; City of Placemaking?: City of Culture through a placemaking lens; The Activist Museum; Generation Next: engaging the new old at Tate Exchange; All in a Day: creative and collaborative museum programming with and for older people.
Broadsheets: The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, The Times, The Telegraph
Radio: BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, Woman’s Hour+ Show more