CURRENT & RECENT ROLES
Freelance artist and curator
Creating and exhibiting artworks at 25+ exhibitions and 150+ performances around the UK and in Europe. Venues and broadcasts include ARTE TV (Germany), TV1 (France), Bluedot Festival, Cité de la Mode et du Design, Festival Number 6, Islington Mill, Fuse Art Space, BBC 6 Music, St John on Bethnal Green, Bristol Folk House, Supersonic Festival and Greenroom; press features include The Independent, Times, Corridor8; Exhibition publication Feint, published by Fuse Art Space; formerly Castlefield Gallery Associate artist and Hoxton Art Projects associate; residency at ArtWork Atelier, Salford.
Curator of Contemporary Art, The Lowry
Running the contemporary art exhibitions at The Lowry, an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation and Greater Manchester’s most-visited cultural attraction. Hew Locke, Jo Lathwood, Nikta Mohammadi.
Exhibitions & Programmes Curator, The Portico Library
Directing the public programme at The Portico Library, a historic collection in its original 1806 venue in Manchester. Devising, curating and publicising a series of site-responsive co-produced exhibitions, events and projects to contextualise the eighteenth and nineteenth-century books and archives. Essays and contributions to publications including Many-Splendoured Thing, Made In Translation, and Cut Cloth: Contemporary Textiles & Feminism.
Learning Consultant, The World Reimagined
Staging and coordinating displays of new sculptural artworks by young people and community groups in over 70 venues across seven UK cities; creating and delivering new multimedia learning resources on the history of the Transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and its legacies to schools around England and Wales. Lead artist Yinka Shonibare, Artistic Director Ashley Shaw-Scott Adjaye, Senior Learning Manager Sabrina Reid.
Education & training
ArtUK & Manchester Art Gallery: Caring for Your Sculpture Collection 2020 ◦◦◦ British Museum: Resilient Heritage mentorship 2019 ◦◦◦ Common Cause Foundation & Manchester Museum: Embedding Shared Values for Stronger Communities, 2019-2020 ◦◦◦ Touring Exhibitions Group & Wellcome Collection: Preparing to Borrow (short course), 2018 ◦◦◦ Manchester School of Art: BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting with Art history, 2004 ◦◦◦ Hertford Regional College: BTEC Diploma Foundation Art & Design 2001 ◦◦◦ City & Guilds: Diploma in Life Drawing 2001
Selected exhibitions, curator
· Refloresta!, Maria Nepomuceno, 2021
· 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
· What it is to be here: Colonisation and resistance, Rene Kulitja, Steve Dixon plus 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, Camille Smithwick, 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
· The Things That Look Back, Nicola Dale, 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: Stephen Dixon, Louise Adkins... with Manchester Metropolitan University School of Arts & Humanities, 2017
· Be Strong, Live Happy & Love: 350 Years of Paradise Lost, Chloë Manasseh, Ilona Kiss, Kate Shaw, Helen Mather + items from Chethams Library, 2017
· Many Splendoured Thing, programmed for The Portico Library with curator Raphael Fonseca and artist Gê Orthof, with Manchester School of Art, HOME and Prêmio Marcantonio Vilaça/Plano Cultural, 2016
· Non-Places of Intelligence, Shreepad Joglekar, 2016
· The Four Guardians of the Sky, Ousama Lazkani, 2016
· Build a Wor(l)d with ‘ing’, Helen Wheeler, 2015
· CUE: Art in Manchester, 2013
Get in touch via the form below or email hello@jamesmossart.com
Selected exhibitions, artist
· That Sinking Feeling, ARM at Bankley Studios & Gallery, 2018
· Northern Abstracts, Saul Hay Gallery, 2017
· James Moss, The Adaptable Gallery, TAG, Deansgate, 2015
· Feint, Fuse Art Space, 2015
· CUE: Art in Manchester, Piccadilly Place, 2013
· James Moss: New Works, Bristol Folk House, 2011
· Mind the Gap: Less is More Projects, Cite de la Mode et du Design, 2010
Selected publications, talks, awards, broadcasts & commissions
· Future 20, mentoring for emerging artists aged 18–25 with HOME, 2020
· Old Tools > New Masters ≠ New Futures, panel discussion with Contact Young Company and Young Identity, Manchester Art Gallery, 2019
· Bankley Open, selection panel judging prizewinner and runners up, 2018
· The Sea is History & Lettres du Voyant artist Q&A, HOME, 2018
· Cut Cloth: Contemporary Textiles & Feminism, PO Publishing, 2017
· Made In Translation published by MMU/The Portico Library, 2017
· Future Legacies symposium, University of Leeds, 2017
· Samarbeta, Ex-Easter Island Head & Crime Scene, Islington Mill, 2017
· Many-Splendoured Thing, Raphael Fonseca/Manchester Met, 2016
· Process artist/curator talk, Bankley Studios & Gallery, 2016
· Métropolis documentary, ARTE TV, 2015
· Feint monograph, pub. Fuse, 2015
· ArtWork Atelier project space, residency, 2013
Selected events, producer / programmer
· ማን እያወራ እንዳለ ይመልከቱ - Look who’s Talking, interpretive performance by Binyam Zenebe Andargie, Tsige Haile and Masresha Getahun-Wondmu, co-produced with Nuria Lopez de la Oliva Mena, 2019
· Fancy Pants Fancy Party, performance by House of Ghetto, choreography by Darren Pritchard, wearable artworks by Ruby Kirby, 2019
· Gut Healing, interactive performance composed and directed by Amy Lawrence, with Henrietta Phoebe Dunn, Selena Laverne Daye, Alison Erika Forde, Diana Tap, Harold Offeh, Elmi Ali, 2017
Selected press
· Refloresta!, Embroidery magazine, 2021
· Fun & Games, Mancunian Matters, 2021
· Journal of Museum Ethnography, 2020
· Bittersweet, Northern Soul, 2017
· Coming In From The Cold, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust, 2017
· Be Strong, Live Happy & Love, Northern Soul, 2017
· Cue: Art in Manchester, Corridor8, 2013
· James Moss at Brahm Gallery, The Independent, 2011