WORK

In 2009 I set up as an independent curator and producer. Since then I have delivered the following exhibitions:

  • Weaving the Unicorn: The Stirling Castle Tapestry Project (2015/16)

  • Stories of the Stranger: The Art of Sylvia Woodcock-Clarke (2015)

  • Restless Ribeiro: An Indian Artist in Britain (2013)

  • Finding the Unicorn: Tapestries Mythical and Modern (2013)

  • The Flamboyant Mr Chinnery:
    An English Artist in India and China (2011)

  • The Tiger in Asian Art:
    Symbol of Power and Protection (2010)

    • At SOAS I curated two Bagri Foundation Lecture Series

  • INDIA: Treasures of the Deccan (2013)

  • DEVI: The Goddess and the Modern Indian Woman (2011)



    • For the UNDP and ARC (The Alliance of Religions and Conservation) I produced Hearing the Voices of Creation, a performance held at Windsor Castle on 3 November 2009. This involved over thirty participants from eight religions, and was attended by HRH Prince Philip and Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations.

    From 1997-2009 I was Cultural Director of Asia House, London, a charity dedicated to the greater understanding of Asian cultures from the Middle East to Japan. Reporting to the late Sir Peter Wakefield, Chairman and Founder of Asia House, I led the cultural team establishing a reputation for excellent programmes on Asian art and culture. I created and ran the gallery at Asia House - presenting approximately five exhibitions a year. Partnerships were developed with key organisations such as the British Museum, the V&A, the British Library, SOAS, and Asian Embassies and Foundations. Before Asia House had its own gallery I presented exhibitions in other London venues: for example India: Pioneering Photographers, 1850-1900 at SOAS's Brunei Gallery and Asia: Body Mind Spirit showing important historical material from the Wellcome Library.

    From 1984-1995 I worked at the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh. Under the director, Mark Jones I curated and organised exhibitions and education programmes relating to the museum's world-class collections. This included giving regular lectures on Ancient Egypt, and curating the exhibitions Discovering Japan which toured to museums throughout the UK, and The Power of the Mask: Spiderman and Snakedemon, the museum's main Edinburgh Festival exhibition, on the use of masks within different societies.

    In the early 1980s I set up the Arts Company and curated exhibitions on contemporary craft and design, such as Body British featuring over 30 designers including Kaffe Fassett and Jean Muir.

    During the late 1970s, as the founder curator of the Scottish Arts Council's Travelling Gallery I presented a programme of mobile exhibitions, and lectures organised in tandem with local authorities. This initiative pioneered taking art to new audiences in rural communities throughout Scotland. The Gallery achieved widespread publicity as the first of its kind in Scotland, and was subsequently imitated elsewhere in Europe.