Curators Miguel Amado and Elinor Morgan join Alistair Hudson’s reshaped team at mima Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art as senior curators. They have a remit of combining the curatorial and learning departments to develop an integrated programme that brings the ‘use of art’ to the fore.
Now part of Teeside University and since July 2014 under the direction of Hudson – who joined mima from Grizedale Arts – this new vision for the gallery seeks to place learning at the core of mima’s activities. It aims to enable the institution’s collections and exhibitions to support a wider approach that sees ‘art as a functional and effective tool for the development of society’.
Joining mima from Barcelona, Amado brings with him extensive international experience having worked as a curator at Abrons Art Centre in New York and the Visual Arts centre in Coimbra, Portugal. He was also the curator of Joana Vasconcelos’ floating and socially animated Portuguese Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale . A graduate of curating from the Royal College of Art, Amado has also worked at Tate St Ives is no stranger to the UK art scene.
“I would like to turn the gallery into a ‘living organism’ at the core of which are artists and audiences, now co-participants in the construction of a bold worldview,” says Amado. “Within it, art is a practice that operates in the social fabric, and can be a catalyst for change.”
Elinor Morgan joins mima from Birmingham where she ran Eastside Projects’ associate artist programme, Extra Special People. She was previously programmes curator at Wysing Arts Centre and chair of the committee at artist-led Outpost gallery in Norwich.
Said Morgan: “We aim to bring critical conversation and learning into every aspect of the programme and will work with artists from around the world to explore mima’s rich collections and Middlesbrough’s social, political and historic contexts”.
