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Dr Anna Colin

Staff details

Dr Anna Colin

Position

Lecturer

Department

Art

Email

a.colin (@gold.ac.uk)

Curator, educator and researcher engaged with critical pedagogy, social and ecological practice, and horticulture.

I have worked as a curator for the past twenty years, whether in a freelance or institutional capacity. Her work is engaged with collaborative processes and cultural practices invested at local, social, educational, and environmental levels. Invested in counter-hegemonic spaces, histories, and figures, her practice straddles the curatorial, the pedagogical, the social, the ecological, and the horticultural.

In 2013, I co-founded Open School East, an alternative art school and community space in London, then Margate, where she was a director for 8 years. Open School East formed a part of her PhD which, in exploring multi-public educational and cultural spaces in England since the late 19th century, unpacked the notion of the alternative in relation to governance, spatiality, and chrononormativity.

I split my time between teaching on the MFA Curating, working on small and large-scale projects, writing, and training in horticulture and permaculture design.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD, School of Geography, University of Nottingham 2022
  • Level 2 Practical Horticulture Certificate, Royal Horticultural Society 2022
  • MA Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art 2005
  • BA Arts Management, London Southbank University 2003

Research interests

My areas of curatorial engagement started in sound art, experimental music and tactical media, before migrating towards other marginalised and/or politically symbolic topics, histories, figures and spaces, such as the agricultural and digital commons, the Black Atlantic, the witch as a symbol of feminist and queer resistance, and colonialism’s impact on the natural environment. These research interests largely manifested in exhibitions and publications at Gasworks, London, Bétonsalon, Paris, and CIC, Cairo.

My current research interests are focused on:

  • cultural production at the service of ecosystems
  • sustainable cultural and social practices
  • critical, participatory, land-based pedagogies
  • differential institutional models

I welcome doctoral applicants seeking to work in one or several of these different areas.

Featured publications

Publications and research outputs

Article

Chabanon, Eve; Colin, Anna and Planeix-Crocker, Madeleine. 2021. Crossed Perspectives on Collaboration. On Curating(52), pp. 163-171. ISSN 2673-2955

Book

Colin, Anna. 2024. Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalization. Berlin and New York: Sternberg Press.

Book Section

Colin, Anna and Boutonnier, Thierry. 2023. Acting with Trees. In: Angelika Burtscher and Daniele Lupo, eds. As If: 16 Dialogues about Sheep, Black Holes, and Movement. Leipzig: Spector Books, pp. 143-153. ISBN 9783959057523

Colin, Anna. 2022. Éducation, art, démocratie, communauté. In: Hélène Meisel, ed. L'Art d'apprendre. Une école des créateurs. Metz: Éditions du Centre Pompidou-Metz. ISBN 9782359830651

Conference or Workshop Item

Colin, Anna. 2024. 'Multi Public Educational Spaces'. In: CONTRAcurricular. St George's Theatre, Great Yarmouth, United Kingdom 22 March 2024.

Colin, Anna. 2023. 'Des pratiques pédagogiques, institutionnelles et paysagères critiques'. In: Journées de recherche et de création "Weather Report": Les arts de subsister dans un monde abîmé. ESAD Valence, France 30-31 January 2023.

Colin, Anna. 2022. 'From alternative to permacultural institutions'. In: MFA Art + MFA Curating Lecture Series. Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom 28 November 2022.

Exhibition Catalogue

Colin, Anna. 2023. Chaleur Humaine.

Project

Colin, Anna and Lang, Marine. January - October 2023 ĝardeno paradizo.

Report

Colin, Anna. 2022. Seeding the Garden: our Place in Lewisham's Green Infrastructure. Other. Goldsmiths, University of London, London.

Show/Exhibition

Colin, Anna. 2023. Chaleur Humaine. In: "Chaleur humaine", FRAC Grand-Large Hauts-de-France, France, 10 June 2023 - 14 January 2024.

Thesis

Colin, Anna. 2022. Alternative to what? Alternative how? A Study of Multi-Public Educational and Cultural Spaces in England since the Late Nineteenth Century. Doctoral thesis, University of Nottingham

Past work and residencies

I have worked as associate curator at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris (2014-20); associate director of Bétonsalon – Centre for art and research, Paris (2011-12); curator at Gasworks, London (2007-10); and radio presenter at Resonance FM, London (2002-5). I was co-curator, with Lydia Yee, of British Art Show 8 in 2015-16 (Leeds, Edinburgh, Norwich and Southampton), and has curated exhibitions and projects at venues including CA2M, Móstoles/Madrid; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool; Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo; GAM, Turin; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene; La Synagogue de Delme, Delme; The Women’s Library, London; and The European Culture Congress, Wroclaw.

I have done residencies and held fellowships at LUMA, Arles; Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz; FRAME – HIAP, Helsinki; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Contemporary Art Society, London; and La Maison populaire, Montreuil.