During the residency, we work closely with each curator to support their idea, commission new artworks and create a programme of events that explore the themes of the exhibition. The curator's approach can be from any practice or background with a focus on imagining visionary futures that consider non-white, or global perspectives.

Take a look at our previous and current Curators in Residence below and the exhibitions and events they presented.

If you are interested in applying for a residency, please sign up for our newsletter or visit jobs and opportunities to see what is available.

Following on from previous exhibitions, Ericka Beckman and Marianna Simnett and REAL WORK, our Autumn/Winter 2019-20 season looked at themes of intersectionality through an exhibition as well as associated public and learning programmes.

In 2019 and with the support of ArtFund, we were delighted to award Helen Starr with the residency, who joined us 6 months prior to the season beginning to develop her ideas for you feel me_.

Helen Starr is an Afro-Carib Trinidadian Blixn* who lives between Trinidad and the UK. She has worked in the Arts sector for over 25 years. She founded The Mechatronic Library in 2010, to enable artists to engage with new media tools such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual reality (VR), Game engines, and 3D printing technologies. Starr’s focus is on the wellbeing of local communities. Working with museum curators and education teams, Starr’s hope is that cutting-edge artworks can provide a glimpse of a future filled with hope.

In 2020 and with the support of Artsformation, Annie Jael Kwan joined us as Curator in Residence to develop the exhibition, Future Ages Will Wonder, which launched our year-long programme exploring themes of belonging: Radical Ancestry.

Annie Jael Kwan is an independent curator and researcher whose exhibition-making, programming, publication and teaching practice is located at the intersection of contemporary art, art history and cultural activism, with interest in archives, histories, feminist, queer and alternative knowledges, collective practices, and solidarity. As co-director of Something Human, a curatorial initiative, she has presented live art projects across the UK and Europe, and launched the the pioneering Southeast Asia Performance Collection (SAPC) that represent 50 artists from the region at the Live Art Development Agency during the 2017 M.A.P. project. Annie leads Asia-Art-Activism (AAA), an interdisciplinary, intergenerational research network launched in 2018, and currently in residence at Raven Row. She is also an instigating council member of Asia Forum, a platform discourses on contemporary global Asias, that will take place during the Venice Biennale in 2022.

Artsformation has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Across 2021 and 2022, Carrie Chan joined us as Curator in Residence to collaborate on our Radical Ancestry programme. The exhibition, My Garden, My Sanctuary, featured immersive new works by Yaloo and Sian Fan - two artists using creative technology to tell stories of ancestry and self-discovery in a hyperconnected world.

Carrie Chan is an independent curator, lecturer, and researcher who specialises in emerging media practices and digital culture. Based in London, she lectures regularly on cross-media and exhibition practices at the University of the Arts as well as Ravensbourne University. She was the inaugural curator of Design Society - a major design institution in Shenzhen co-founded by China Merchants Group and London's Victoria & Albert Museum. She was the curator for the opening show Minding the Digital (2017) and the co-curator of the major show Craft: The Reset (2018). As anindependent curator, she led several projects which fostered the creative collaboration between the East and the West. She was previously appointed as the curator for the touring show Co-Creating Hong Kong: A Design + Exhibition in San Francisco and Hong Kong. She has also lectured internationally at the Hong Kong Design Institute, Parsons School of Design and the Royal College of Art. She recently completed a research fellowship at the Royal College of Art. Her research interest is on digital technologies' impact on image-making, body representation as well as self-expression.

Beatrice is an interdisciplinary collaborator with Ukrainian heritage based in Germany. After completing her Master's degree at the Humboldt University in Berlin and Goldsmiths University in London, she worked as a curatorial trainee at ZKM | Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe. Later, she travelled to Colombia to work with artists and activists in an international exchange program. There, Beatrice developed her tools and methods to include collaborative practices in curatorial projects. She is currently a Curator-in-Residence at FACT and a project manager at Schering Stiftung in Berlin. These roles have allowed her to build lasting international networks, creating stronger and more sustainable connections between art, science, and technology.

Beatrice’s residency at FACT is building towards her upcoming exhibition which will include a mixture of new commissions, ambitious restagings and a series of events. From 8 November 2024 to 26 January 2025, Cosmotechnics explores the relationship between culture and technology through the lens of three artists from Latin America. Each artwork challenges the idea that technology (how we use it, define it and what it produces) is the same everywhere. Instead, the works show how local ways of thinking and sensing can create new ways to embrace art and culture, through multiple understandings and perspectives of technology.

Beatrice's residency is part of our three-year Curatorial Development Programme, generously supported by the John Ellerman Foundation.