Who I am

My art practice is a site for production, collaboration, presentation, co-learning and reflection. I am the Curator of The Museum of Loss and Renewal.

I am a Scots-Italian award-winning artist, curator, scholar and educator whose practice and research contributes to the development of visual arts practice and art education. Since the 1990s, I have received public and private funding and been awarded commissions to make work, including installations, site-specific projects, artist’s publications, workshops and events.

My specialist areas are contemporary art practice, artistic research, art writing, collaborative practices, mentoring, publishing as an artistic practice, and art education. I am AuDHD.

My art practice is a discursive site for art making, co-learning, presentation and exchange. I take up the roles of artist, curator, producer, facilitator, educator and researcher and stimulate interdisciplinary relationships to debate and reflect on social and cultural issues. Major exhibition projects have been commissioned by e.g. CCA Glasgow, Arnolfini Bristol, Barbican Art Gallery London, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst Zürich, Scottish National Portrait Gallery Edinburgh, P3 Art and Environment Tokyo, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam the Netherlands.

Conversation, drawing, video, walking and writing are practices and research modes that I activate as dialogical processes to stimulate playful, provocative and non-linear properties in visual art practice, giving new and refreshed voice to collaborators and subject-matters. The themes of loss and renewal run through my work, investigated through durational engagement with people, place and time, focussing on identity, belonging, memory, ruin, and imagining new sustainable and accessible futures. I explore and make with collaborators and partners, integrating art, co-learning and society.

I am the Curator of The Museum of Loss and Renewal Residencies and Publishing, and its co-founder. It is an art project that offers space and contexts for making and sharing through residency programmes and publishing. Rather than being a museum in the traditional sense that accumulates ‘stuff’, it stimulates people to take time in which to generate thoughts, feelings and ideas. It is a growing collection of experiences that are regularly shared through the activities of its curator, partners and residents, and is a vehicle that enables the consideration of how to lead a more balanced life.

As a much sought-after lecturer, I teach about and mentor in my specialist areas across the world. I have worked in higher education and in leadership roles for over two decades. I have developed active models for the integration of teaching and learning, practice and research that position the potential of art as a critical agent in debates about society and its public sites. I am Professor Emerita at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee.

A highly experienced workshop facilitator, mentor and creative coach, I work in specific geographical locations and in the online environment, utilising the particular possibilities it provides for one-to-one meetings and large international gatherings. I am a member of multiple organisations and networks including e.g. Scottish Islands Research Network, Steering Group – Birsay Place Plan Orkney, and am an Independent Reviewer for REF2029 / Research Excellence Framework UK.

Extensive periods have been spent living and working in Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania, making and showing art, and establishing artist-led organisations, collaborations and international partnerships between organisations. I am a founding-Director of Glasgow Sculpture Studios, and contributed to the establishment of the French art organisation artconnexion that creates innovative connections between artists and society. I am an Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture.