About
Rose Lejeune is an experienced curator and consultant with particular expertise in working with artists whose practices have strong multi-disciplinary, performative, digital, public or social elements.
Primarily working on collection expansion and acquisition research as well as artist’s commissions and public art, Rose works across museum and private collections, the commercial, public and education sectors. She has built a reputation for strategic overview and curatorial innovation and in 2020 was named in ArtNet’s Intelligence Report as a “global innovator” for her work.
Rose has substantial experience of institutional strategic planning, programme curation, public art and pedagogical course design. She is also frequently invited to share her expertise through teaching, panels, interviews and writing and works both in the UK and internationally.
Rose’s current work builds on a decade of experience working with public organisations and on independent projects. In particular, she focused on the development of ideas and artistic process outside of traditional gallery spaces, especially public art and social practice.
Rose holds a BA in Philosophy and Art History, and an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA) and is on the advisory board for the independent space Mimosa House, London. Finally, she is currently PhD candidate in Curating at Goldsmiths College, University of London where her research focuses on the institutionalisation of performance art.
Current and recent projects and clients include:
Performance Exchange – Founding Director of a dispersed live programme across commercial galleries in London. Highlighting the work done by commercial galleries to support performance and multi-disciplinary practices, Performance Exchange creates new forms of support for performance through a programme of presentation combined with detailed acquisition information for each work, and an acquisitions fund for three museums to purchase work from the programme. Performance Exchange’s first edition was held in London July in 2021 – full details can be found on its website here.
Abu Dhabi Art – Curator of Live Programme for the art fair in 2020 (360 filmed, digital programme) and 2021 (live interventions in the fair).
British Council – Consultant for Art Criticism and Cultural Skills Development MENA Region programme with workshops and professional development support for artists and curators in Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Delfina Foundation – Curator for Collecting as Practice programme: A research and residency project, the programme explores collecting and collections as sites with the potential for active and critical engagement in the development of cultural identity, revisionist histories and new narratives. The programme unpacks how artists and collectors alike are redefining the critical discourses of collecting in a global context.
Focal Point Gallery and Southend-on-Sea Borough Council – Strategy Re-Write and pilot projects for borough-wide review of public art policy.
Contemporary Art Society – Collecting the Ephemeral Study Day and Collecting Live Art Report.
Victoria Museum and Gallery, Liverpool – Design and curation of Collection Commissions Programme.
Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford – Consultancy for contemporary art programme as part of the broader Architectures of Displacement project on the refugee crisis.
University of Salford Art Collection – Strategic review of collection.
Work with private collections and museums – details on request.
Past Experience – Some highlights:
Gallery Lejeune, an exhibition and performance programme in my home that investigated ways in which context-based, performative and ephemeral work can be archived and collected within a domestic setting.
Art on the Underground as Curator of the world-class programme of contemporary art that enriches the London Tube environment.
Breathing Space and other projects, a series of ‘living’ exhibitions that mixed up the forms of exhibitions, residencies and conferences. Bringing together artworks with artists, theorists and audiences in a series of unique meetings they opened up the processes, frameworks and durations through which art is made, displayed and disseminated.
Serpentine Gallery as Education Projects Curator; managing and developing the programme of major off-site projects for the Gallery.