Karen Di Franco

Biography

Dr Karen Di Franco is Senior Lecturer, MA Curating and Collections and Programme Curator at Chelsea Space, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL. Her research and curatorial work frequently intersects with lesser-discussed art practices and histories — described through materials that complicate notions of archive, ephemera and the art collection. As such, her research and exhibition practices often focus on event and process-based forms with an emphasis on text and publishing. She has written and spoken on artists such as Carolee Schneemann, Nancy Holt and Constance DeJong, feminist archival methodologies, categorisation and linked open data — an area developed through her background in digital archiving.

Her educational background includes a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from the University of the West of England, an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London and her AHRC funded PhD research thesis Embodied Iteration: Materialising the Language of Writing and Performance in Women Artists’ Publishing, 1968–1979, was a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership based between the University of Reading and Tate Britain.

Between 2021-25 she was Programme Leader, M.Litt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) at Glasgow School of Art. She has taught across the fields of art practice, art history and writing, working with educational institutions such as the RCA, Goldsmiths, University of Reading and Leeds University. As an archivist and curator she has worked for public organisations such as Spike Island, the Contemporary Art Society, Diaspora-Artists Archive and Book Works.