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Dr Anna Colin

Staff details

Dr Anna Colin

Position

Programme Director of MFA Curating

Department

Art

Email

a.colin (@gold.ac.uk)

Goldsmiths Research Centres/Groups

Anna's practice encompasses the curatorial, the pedagogical, the social and the ecological.

Alongside her collaborative curatorial projects, which increasingly engage placing art at the service of human and non-human ecosystems, and the creation and care for biodiverse environments, Anna has been training in horticulture, permaculture design and arboriculture, and volunteering on agroecological farms.

Her writing has focused on ecocentric social practice, critical pedagogy, alternative modes of instituting, and institutional time.

In 2013, Anna 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 time.

Academic qualifications

  • Permaculture Design Certificate, Permaculture Association UK 2024
  • Level 2 Practical Horticulture Certificate, Royal Horticultural Society 2022
  • PhD, School of Geography, University of Nottingham 2022
  • MA Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art 2005
  • BA Arts Management, London Southbank University 2003

Research interests

Anna's 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 (see below for further detail).

Anna is currently engaged in research on holistic and intersectional organisational models, which resist chrononormativity and approach sustainability as a dynamic, cyclical, and non-anticipatory, or product-oriented, process. She has been looking for inspiration in the fields of ecology, agroecology, and arboriculture to reconceptualize art institutions’ relationship to waiting, slowness, rest, and longevity.

She welcomes doctoral applicants seeking to work in one or several of the following areas:

  • cultural production at the service of ecosystems
  • regenerative artistic, curatorial and institutional practices
  • alternative institutional models
  • critical pedagogies

Featured publications

Publications and research outputs

Article

Book

Book Section

  • Acting with Trees 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
  • Éducation, art, démocratie, communauté 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

  • The Ecosystemic Clock Colin, Anna. 2025. 'The Ecosystemic Clock'. In: Learning with mountains; recalibrating how we understand art and planet. Nicosia, Cyprus 6-8 February 2025.
  • The Singing Compost Colin, Anna; Gray, Ros; Granjon, Paul and Morrison, Harun. 2024. 'The Singing Compost'. In: BSSS Annual Conference: 'Sustainable Soils for People and Planet'. Glamorgan Cricket Club, Cardiff, United Kingdom 4-6 December 2024.
  • Multi Public Educational Spaces Colin, Anna. 2024. 'Multi Public Educational Spaces'. In: CONTRAcurricular. St George's Theatre, Great Yarmouth, United Kingdom 22 March 2024.

Exhibition Catalogue

Report

Show/Exhibition

  • Chaleur Humaine Colin, Anna. 2023. Chaleur Humaine. In: "Chaleur humaine", FRAC Grand-Large Hauts-de-France, France, 10 June 2023 - 14 January 2024.
  • ĝardeno paradizo Colin, Anna and Lang, Marine. 2023. ĝardeno paradizo. Résidence Sévignée, France January - October 2023.
  • Sunken Ecologies Colin, Anna. 2021. Sunken Ecologies. In: "Sunken Ecologies", Sunken Garden, Margate, United Kingdom, 25 September - 10 October 2021.

Thesis

Other

Past work and residencies

Anna has 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). She was co-curator, with Lydia Yee, of British Art Show 8 in 2015-16 (Leeds, Edinburgh, Norwich and Southampton), and co-curator, with Camille Richert, assisted by Henriette Gillerot, of 'Chaleur Humaine', the second edition of the Dunkirk Art & Industry Triennale in 2023-24.

She 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; The European Culture Congress, Wroclaw; Mécènes du Sud - Montpellier, Sète, Béziers; and Villa Arson, Nice.

She has 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.