It was never my intention to enter education, nor was I ever planning to become an academic. When studying art history, I did gain a teaching qualification, mentored by Wies van Moorsel (who sadly passed away last year) and also focused on making art more accessible during my placement at a small museum in Apeldoorn. A direct effect of getting that qualification was that I ended up delivering Saturday courses in art history for several years, which gave me the opportunity to travel through Egypt and Turkey and visit a wide range of archeological sites and museums.* Despite the lack of intention, I have now been teaching for a long time in the UK: initially as a visiting lecturer on the MFA at the Glasgow School of Art, and coinciding with and subsequent to that I was an Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London for quite a few years.
Teaching on the MA Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art in London since 2019, I had the opportunity to change my affiliation there and apply for a permanent position. Sealing that trajectory has been me acquiring the status of FHEA – Fellow of the Higher Education Framework, managed by Advance HE. While the application required a mindset that is not my natural habitat, it did allow me to consider how my practice, my interests and research and my teaching are all interlinked. So much for my lack of my intentions…
* Although I focused on contemporary art, studying art history for me involved exploring art from many periods in the past.
The celebratory Jeppe Hein balloon was shot in Copenhagen
Gerrie van Noord 