Jenny Brownrigg is Exhibitions Director at The Glasgow School of Art (2009-). The GSA Exhibitions curated programme works with students, staff and local, national and international practitioners at all stages of career, across contemporary fine art, design and architecture disciplines. At the GSA, a number of commissions have engaged with aspects of heritage, in particular creating opportunities for contemporary practitioners to respond to architecture and archival resources.
Her particular interest is in site-specific curating for both gallery-based and off-site projects. Her research question looks at how curation in the expanded field can work as a creative catalyst to connect organisation, site, community and audience with creative practice, in particular in a Higher Education environment.
As well as exhibitions and events, she has curated public art and residency projects for urban and rural environments. Public art commissions include Michael Stumpf’s Balconies Commission (Glasgow International 2014) and a co-commission with Glasgow East Arts Company – Alex Frost’s The New Easterhouse Mosaic (Glasgow International 2012). In 2011 she was part of a group led by Glasgow East Arts Company, working on the first phase of VeloCity, an operational plan for art in the public domain in Glasgow, in the run up to, and after, the Commonwealth Games, commissioned by Glasgow Life, Glasgow City Council, Creative Scotland and Clyde Gateway.
In 2013, Jenny was the curatorial lead for Convocation, the Scottish ‘knot’ of Colm Cille’s Spiral, bringing together a group of eighteen scholars and practitioners, including GSA staff and students, for an island residency and subsequent exhibition back at the GSA. In 2012, Jenny worked with Judit Bodor and Blair Todd to create Three Points of Contact, a roving residency and evolving network that created the opportunity for curators to work together, bringing international artists into contact with UK artists at contrasting locations including Glasgow, York and Cornwall in the pilot year.
In 2009 Jenny was commissioned to work with Claudia Zeiske (Deveron Arts) to write a curatorial research report to support the development of a contemporary visual arts programme at Timespan, Sutherland. From 2002-9 she was curator at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee, Scotland. In 2009 she devised The Nine Trades of Dundee where nine artists who supported their practice by working in a second non-related art trade undertook artist residencies in workplaces relating to that trade. In 2006 she was co-curator of The Young Artists’ Biennial Absent Without Leave (AWOL), 2nd Edition, Bucharest, Romania.
Other previous posts have included; Project Officer at Grizedale Arts, Cumbria, England (2000-2); and Gallery Co-ordinator at Changing Room Gallery, Stirling, Scotland (1998-9).
Jenny’s publications include: Romantic Vanguard, (2002, published by The Centre), the result of a residency as part of Royston Road Project; and Nature Centre (2000,106pp, published by Grizedale, Cumbria), the result of a writers residency to contextualise contemporary art with the nature of the landscape at Grizedale Arts.
