Michael Tooby

Mike Tooby (born 20 December 1956) is an independent curator and researcher based in Cardiff, Wales.

His interests lie in integrating the practices often separated in curating in the arts and heritage settings: research, display, promotion, participation and learning.

His own practice centres on curating in collaborative or site-specific contexts, where negotiating and celebrating relationships with audiences are at the core of projects.

Tooby's commitment to participation and social engagement is exemplified by his role in, Journeys with 'The Waste Land' , a major exhibition exploring the significance of T.S. Eliot’s poem 'The Waste Land' through the visual arts.

Tooby described himself as the "initiating curator" of this project, elsewhere he is described as its "architect".

Journeys with 'The Waste Land' was exhibited first at the Turner Contemporary in Margate and then at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry.

Information about the project (including its timeline, methodology, downloads, videos of its research group in action and visitor data) is available on the Turner Contemporary Website.

Tooby grew up in Coventry and was educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry (1967 to 1974) before studying for a Master of Arts (MA) in Art History, Archaeology and Anthropology at Magdalene College, Cambridge (1975–78)

Full details of Tooby's "research and academic outputs" can be found on ResearchSPAce

Previously, Tooby was: curator (1992 to 1999) at Tate St Ives and curator of the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden (1992–1999); Director, National Museum & Gallery (2000 to 2004) and Director of Learning, Programmes and Development (2004 to 2011) for Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales;

Since 2012, Tooby has been Professor of Art & Design at the Bath School of Art & Design at Bath Spa University.

His teaching specialisms are: History of Art & Design; Museology; Contemporary Curatorial Practice.

Other recent academic appointments include: Senior Research Fellow (2014–15) at the Henry Moore Institute; Steering Group Member (2015–18) for the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded research project led by Sonia Boyce, "Black Art and Modernism", at the University of the Arts London; Academic Advisor to the Academy of Visual Arts (2015–18), Hong Kong Baptist University; International Visiting Scholar (2018) in the Art History and Curating programme, Australian National University.

Tooby gave the 2018 Ursula Hoff Lecture in curating at the University of Melbourne.

In this lecture, Tooby explored how testimony has played a key role in his recent curatorial projects.

His starting point was the use of William Blake's Illustrations to Dante in Journeys with 'The Waste Land', which was created by the collective sharing of different life experiences and expertise by over 100 participants in its curating.

He will show how this process was informed by his previous interest in testimony when co-curating faith-based and minority cultural projects in Wales, such as The Muslim World on Your Doorstep and Hineni: belonging and identity in a Jewish community.