Royal College of Art Makes Senior Appointments in School of Humanities
The Royal College of Art has made two appointments at senior level within the School of Humanities: Dr Marquard Smith is to be School Research Leader and Head of Doctoral Studies, and Dr Victoria Walsh is appointed Head of Curating Contemporary Art.
Victoria Walsh, a curator, project manager and research consultant in the fields of visual arts, architecture, arts education and post-critical museology, is also an alumna of the RCA's CCA programme. She has previously worked for the Tate, the London Mayor’s Cultural Office, LSE Cities, the Architecture Foundation, Foster & Partners and the Royal College of Art amongst others.
As Head of Adult Programmes at at the Tate (2005–2011), Victoria led the development of key research projects such as Tate Encounters: Britishness and Visual Culture (with London Southbank University and University of the Arts) and Art School Educated (with the Leverhulme Trust). Her curatorial experience includes commissioning artists at Tate such as Jeremy Deller, Martin Creed and Tacita Dean; the Fourth Plinth Project in Trafalgar Square, and as curatorial consultant for the Tate exhibition, Open Systems: Rethinking Art. Victoria is the author of the first monograph on the artist Nigel Henderson, as well as of numerous articles on post-war artists including Francis Bacon, Gilbert & George, and architects Alison and Peter Smithson, curatorship and museology.
An academic, curator and commissioner, Dr Marquard Smith is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Visual Culture. Currently Marq is Founding Director of the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture at University of Westminster, Course Leader for the MA Visual Culture and has curated at 309 Regent Street Gallery.
Prior to this, he was co-founder and co-director of the Visual and Material Culture Research Centre in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Kingston University, where he was also Head of Public Programmes and established an art imprint and Kiosk, a magazine of art, design and architecture.
Marq's world-leading research on the human in the art, visual and material culture of modernity has been published in journals such as Angelaki, New Formations and Screen and he has forthcoming monographs with Yale University Press and Reaktion Books. He also has an interest in the idea of research itself as a cultural practice and by way of programming with cultural institutions such as ICA, Tate and Whitechapel; and curating exhibitions such as How We Became Metadata (2010) and The Global Archive (2012) has worked collaboratively with artists and designers including Janet Cardiff and Georges Bures Miller, Shezad Dawood, Eunju Han, Young In Hong, Eduardo Kac, Susan Pui San Lok, Jamie Shovlin and Thomson and Craighead.
Commenting on the two appointments, Professor Jane Pavitt, Dean of the School of Humanities said:
'This is excellent news for Humanities at the RCA. Marq joins us at a very exciting time for the School. Maintaining the vitality and relevance of the arts and humanities is of huge importance to current society, and a new kind of research culture and practice is emerging as a result. Our doctoral students and post-graduate programmes are at the forefront of this. I am delighted to be adding such a distinguished and gifted academic to our staff, enhancing our already strong reputation.
Victoria has exactly the right qualifications – as curator, practitioner and theorist – and the right level of experience to build on the successes of her predecessors and lead CCA into its next chapter. We were impressed with her strong leadership and creative vision for the future of curating in a global context, and her active, hands-on approach to teaching.
With these two appointments I am confident that the Royal College of Art’s Curating programme and indeed the School will remain at the forefront of art and design education, both here in the UK and internationally.'
Dr Marquard Smith said: 'It’s a wonderful opportunity to work at the best art school on the planet, with world-renowned colleagues, and exceptionally stimulating students. I will be looking to develop further the School’s dynamic research and doctoral community, a context where history, theory, writing, and curating are understood as practice.'
Dr Victoria Walsh said: 'Since its inception in 1992 the programme has been recognised as a leading international centre of curatorial training and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to build on this history and to take it forward to meet the challenges of curating in the global context of contemporary art today. The programme has always been distinguished by the professional expertise, intellectual vivacity and personal commitment of its teaching staff, and by the calibre of its students, and I am very much looking forward to working with both.'