Designed and delivered by Jerwood Arts, Jerwood Curatorial Accelerator (JCA) is a pioneering 12-month curatorial and leadership development programme for early-career curators from working class/low socio economic backgrounds.
Responding to the lack of diversity in visual arts leadership in the UK it aims to tackle the barriers to creative progression, acknowledging the important role of curators as gatekeepers to the diversity and breadth of art that is programmed and visible publicly.
Following a national call for entries and nomination process in Spring 2022, the selected JCA Fellows are:
- Aimee Harrison
- Aliyah Hasinah
- Ben Urban
- Candice Nembhard
- Cecelia Graham
- David Cleary
- Dhelia Snoussi
- Georgina Johnson
- Katherine Murphy
- Lee Cutter
- Thomas Wells
The JCA Fellows each bring unique experiences and perspective to their practice. Working across different formats, their curatorial work is highly engaged and explores the relationship between the arts and a wide spectrum of social and cultural issues including social and climate justice, race and gender identity, LGBTQ+ experience, mental health, and the institutional and cultural marginalisation of vulnerable communities. The group includes curators based in Belfast, Birmingham, Glasgow, Hastings, Liverpool, London and North Wales, creating a new UK-wide peer network.
JCA brings together a peer group of the most exciting curatorial voices in the UK today with seven ‘Host’ visual arts organisations: Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry ̴Londonderry, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Peak Cymru, Somerset House, Turner Contemporary and Yorkshire Sculpture International. The Hosts represent a network of organisations across the UK committed to increasing diversity in curatorial practice who will share research, knowledge, and ideas, to continue improving access to curatorial roles.
The fully funded 12-month programme runs from July 2022 to July 2023 and is structured around a series of bespoke in-person visits to each Host organisation, supporting JCA Fellows to develop new research, networks and knowledge of visual arts practice in the UK. Led by the individual Host organisations, the visits will enable access to innovative approaches to practice and place, while also fostering symbiotic exchange about the critical curatorial issues facing the visual arts sector today.
Alongside this, the JCA Fellows will develop their individual leadership skills and curatorial vision through dedicated mentoring, training and developmental activities.
The programme has received £100,000 funding through Arts Council England’s Transforming Leadership Programme, through which Jerwood Arts is also delivering the Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries programme 2020-22 and a WJCB Alumni Fund, alongside £50,000 from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and in-kind support from Art Fund.
Find out more
Download the press release, here.
Read more about the JCA Fellows, here.
Read about what we learned using both nominations and a call for entry in our application process, here.
Read more about JCA, here.
