James Moss CV, 2025
Born 26/02/1982, www.jamesmossart.com, 07870 639255, hello@jamesmossart.com
Employment
Freelance Curator, Artist & Heritage Consultant 2003-present
Project Managing The Lowry’s flagship 2024-2025 art project, delivering free, accessible public engagement and the safe and secure touring of L.S. Lowry’s masterpiece Going to the Match. Consultant for University of Sheffield Festival of the Mind project Ownership and the Price of Empire, and for The World Reimagined Learning Team. Talks/tours for V&A Young Curators, HOME Manchester, Culture&, Contact Young Company/Manchester Art Gallery. Exhibitions and performances with venues and broadcasts including BBC (UK), ARTE (Germany), TF1 (France), Bluedot Festival, Cité de la Mode et du Design, Koko London, Festival Number 6, Islington Mill, Fuse Art Space, St John on Bethnal Green, Bristol Folk House, Supersonic Festival and Greenroom; press features include The Independent and Corridor8; Exhibition publication Feint, published by Fuse Art Space, 2015; formerly Castlefield Gallery Associate artist and Hoxton Art Projects Associate; residency at ArtWork Atelier, Salford, 2013
Curator of Contemporary Art, The Lowry, 2023-2024 (maternity cover)
Curating and producing the public programme of exhibitions, events and associated activities at The Lowry, Greater Manchester’s most-visited cultural attraction and an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation. Fundraising for capital and project development; contributing to Senior Creative Team meetings and co-managing Galleries Steering Group of low income and disabled local residents.
Exhibitions & Programmes Curator, The Portico Library, 2015-2023
Directing and commissioning the exhibitions, events and projects at The Portico Library. Increasing revenue and successfully leading complex fundraising and capital development bids for ACE, AHF, NLHF (£5m). Running tours, workshops and collaborative projects. Diversifying and expanding staff and Trustees through proactive recruitment and advocacy. Researching, curating, publicising and evaluating site-responsive co-produced arts projects with Greater Manchester’s communities. Essays and contributions to publications including Made In Translation and Cut Cloth: Contemporary Textiles & Feminism.
Learning Consultant, the World Reimagined, 2022-2023 (extended secondment)
Staging and coordinating displays of new sculptural artworks with young people and community groups in 70+ venues across seven UK cities; creating and delivering learning resources on the history of the Transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans for 150+ schools around England and Wales. Lead artist Yinka Shonibare, Artistic Director Ashley Shaw-Scott Adjaye, Senior Learning Manager Sabrina Reid.
Visitor Services Assistant: Enterprise, Manchester Art Gallery, 2012-2015
Welcoming and providing sales and information to customers at Manchester Art Gallery; processing banking for gallery revenues plus those for Platt Hall Gallery of Costume; working with colleagues, artists and volunteers to deliver commercial exhibitions and events.
Library Information and Study Support Assistant, Manchester City Libraries, 2009-2012
Planning and running after-school and weekend group study sessions for young people aged 8 to 16 at Hulme, Fallowfield and Moss Side Millennium Powerhouse; developing and implementing engagement improvement strategies.
Social Work and Youth & Community Work Placements Administrator, MMU, 2008-2009
Liaising with Social and Youth & Community Work organisations across Greater Manchester to manage students’ work-based placements and assisting the heads of departments in building network relationships across the North West.
English Instructor and Kids Coordinator, Nova Group, Tokyo, Japan, 2006-2007
Planning and teaching English lessons to students of all ages at a language school in Tokyo, Japan; providing assessment and feedback sessions and contributing to team evaluations.
Audience researcher, Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, 2003-2004
Interviewing members of the public across all demographics about their use of arts, culture, leisure and heritage services to create market and audience research reports for public, private and charity sector clients.
Selected education and training
Harwell Restoration Disaster Recovery Preparation, 2023 ◦◦◦ WEAVE Winter School Creative Spaces, 2022 ◦◦◦ ArtUK & Manchester Art Gallery: Caring for Your Collection 2020 ◦◦◦ British Museum: Resilient Heritage mentoring 2019 ◦◦◦ Common Cause Foundation & Manchester Museum: Embedding Shared Values for Stronger Communities, 2019-2020 ◦◦◦ Touring Exhibitions Group & Wellcome Collection: Preparing to Borrow, 2018 ◦◦◦ Alzheimers Society Dementia Friends, 2017 ◦◦◦ Manchester School of Art: BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting with Art History, 2004 ◦◦◦ Hertford Regional College: BTEC Diploma Foundation Art & Design, 2001 ◦◦◦ Simon Balle School: A Level x3, GCSE x12, 2000/1998
Selected exhibitions, curator/programmer/producer
· Memory Stone, Nikta Mohammadi, 2024, film incorporating Iranian myth & Northern English landscape
· Refloresta!, Maria Nepomuceno, 2021, Brazilian textile & ecological history installation
· Fun & Games: Playtime, past & present, Birungi Kawooya, Apapat Jai-in Glynn, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Le Ha Thu, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Gray Wielebinski, Hope Strickland, Polly Tayarachakul, supported by the Zochonis Charitable Trust, 2021, group exhibition on the social history and future of play
· What it is to be here: Colonisation and resistance, Rene Kulitja, Steve Dixon, items from Manchester Museum, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Lowitja Institute and Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council, co-curated with Dr Helen Idle, 2020
· Talking Sense: The changing vocabulary of mind and brain, Fifty artists. Fifty minds. Fifty artworks in paint, film, drawing, sculpture and print, supported by the Zochonis Charitable Trust, 2020
· Second Nature: What is ‘nature’ anyway? Navid Asghari, Jackie Chettur, Oliver East, Jessica El Mal, Louise Hewitt, Ruth Murray, Joanna Whittle plus items from Manchester Museum and associated events with Amy Lawrence & Joe Whitmore, Journeys Festival International, Venture Arts and Let’s Keep Growing, supported by the Zochonis Charitable Trust, 2019
· Making the News: Reading between the lines, from Peterloo to Meskel Square, Robel Temesgen, Polyp, Schlunke & Poole, supported by the Zochonis Charitable Trust, 2019
· Fancy Pants, Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou, Ruby Kirby, Lindsey Mendick, House of Ghetto, 2019
· BiblioTech: from bookshelf to big data, Dan Hays, Jane Lawson, Claire Tindale, supported by the Zochonis Charitable Trust, 2018
· In So Many Words: Roget’s Thesaurus & the power of language, Jez Dolan, Sarah Rowland Hill, Jonathan Hitchen, 2018
· Bittersweet: Legacies of Slavery & Abolition in Manchester, Lubaina Himid, Keith Piper, Mary Evans plus artefacts from Manchester Art Gallery & Quarry Bank Mill, co-curated with Dr Natalie Zacek 2017
· Recollection: Memory & Time, Saima Rasheed, Alnoor Mitha, Maggie Hargreaves, Leo Robinson, Stacey Coughlin, supported by the Zochonis Charitable Trust 2017
· Cut Cloth: Contemporary Textiles & Feminism, programmed for The Portico Library with curator Sarah-Joy Ford and artists Tilleke Schwartz, Wendy Huhn, Orly Cogan… + items from People’s History Museum & The Pankhurst Centre, 2017
· Made In Translation, co-curated with Alice Kettle with MMU School of Arts & Humanities, 2017
· Many Splendoured Thing, programmed for The Portico Library with Raphael Fonseca and Gê Orthof, with Manchester School of Art, HOME and Prêmio Marcantonio Vilaça/Plano Cultural, 2016
· Non-Places of Intelligence, Shreepad Joglekar, 2016
Selected publications, talks, awards, broadcasts & commissions
· Textile & Place Conference, panel discussion on politics and activism, 2021
· Old Tools > New Masters ≠ New Futures, panel discussion with Contact Young Company and Young Identity, Manchester Art Gallery, 2019
· Bankley Open, selection panel member judging open prize-winner and runners up, 2018
· The Sea is History & Lettres du Voyant artist Q&A with Louis Henderson, HOME, 2018
· Cut Cloth: Contemporary Textiles & Feminism published by PO Publishing, 2017
· Made In Translation published by MMU/The Portico Library, 2017
· Future Legacies symposium, University of Leeds, 2017
· Samarbeta residencies, Ex-Easter Island Head and Crime Scene, Islington Mill, 2017
· Many-Splendoured Thing pub. Raphael Fonseca/Manchester School of Art, 2016
· Process artist/curator talk, Bankley Studios & Gallery, 2016
· Métropolis, documentary spotlight profile representing Greater Manchester, ARTE TV, 2015
· Feint monograph, pub. Fuse, 2015
