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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.

Anna is a curator whose interdisciplinary practice encompasses the pedagogical, the social, the ecological and the horticultural.

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, she has been training in horticulture, permaculture design and arboriculture, and volunteering on agroecological farms.

Her writing has focused on social practice, critical pedagogy, differential organisational models, institutionalisation 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 chrononormativity.

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 the coalescence of art, gardening and farming, and the ways in which permaculture design can inform artistic, curatorial and institutional practices, beyond representation and appropriation, and towards environmental responsibility and accountability. And, vice-versa, how cultural practice can benefit natural ecosystems, and what approaches, methodologies, tools, durations, and interdisciplinary collaborations can be deployed to this end.

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
  • critical, participatory, eco-pedagogies
  • alternative institutional models

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. 2025. Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalization. Berlin and New York: Sternberg Press. ISBN 9781915609670

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. 'Institutional ecosystems, ecosystemic institutions: life cycles, (non-)linear time, and stewardship'. In: Institutional ecosystems, ecosystemic institutions: life cycles, (non-)linear time, and stewardship. Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom 10 July 2023.

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.

Exhibition Catalogue

Colin, Anna and Richert, Camille. 2023. Chaleur Humaine.

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.

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

Colin, Anna. 2021. Sunken Ecologies. In: "Sunken Ecologies", Sunken Garden, Margate, United Kingdom, 25 September - 10 October 2021.

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

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.