Tom Trevor

Tom Trevor is a curator and writer based in the United Kingdom. He is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Curation at the University of Exeter, UK. Previously he was Artistic Director of The Atlantic Project in Plymouth, UK (2016-19), Guest Curator at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015-16), Artistic Director of the 4th Dojima River Biennale in Osaka, Japan (2014-15), curatorial consultant to the 1st ARoS Triennale in Aarhus, Denmark (2014-15), Guest Curator at the Devi Art Foundation in Delhi, India (2013-14), Director of Arnolfini in Bristol, UK (2005-13), Associate Curator of the Art Fund International collection, UK (2007-12), and Director of Spacex in Exeter, UK (1999-2005).

Over the past twenty years he has curated more than 100 exhibitions, placing an emphasis upon experimental emerging practice, particularly interdisciplinary and context-led projects, working in partnership with museums and galleries around the world. During this time he has been responsible for numerous early career shows, as well as first UK presentations by artists such as Maria Thereza Alves, Cosima von Bonin, Matti Braun, Tania Bruguera, Meschac Gaba, Shilpa Gupta, Doris Salcedo, Joelle Tuerlinckx, Lois Weinberger and Haegue Yang, amongst others.

His recent curated projects include The Atlantic Project: After The Future (2018), a large-scale context-led project which took place in unusual locations across the city of Plymouth, featuring site-specific installations by 20 artists from 12 countries, including Hito Steyerl, Ryoji Ikeda and SUPERFLEX. In 2015, as Artistic Director of the 4th Dojima River Biennale in Osaka, he was the first British curator to lead a Japanese biennial, entitled Take Me To The River, with artists from 8 countries showing alongside leading practitioners from Japan. In the same year, as Guest Curator at the Whitechapel Gallery, he curated Music for Museums, a four-month programme of experimental music performances, film screenings and sound interventions throughout the institution. In 2014-15, as curatorial consultant to ARoS Kunstmuseum in the lead-up to Aarhus 2017, European Capital of Culture, he initiated and devised the 1st ARoS Triennale, on a theme of THE GARDEN. He also worked on a major video commission by John Akomfrah, Vertigo Sea, for the 56th Venice Biennale. In 2013, as Guest Curator at the Devi Art Foundation in Delhi, he co-curated the exhibition, Black Sun, with Shezad Dawood, including leading artists from the South Asian diaspora.

Over the past 20 years Trevor has curated numerous group shows and multi-site projects; e.g. The Visible & the Invisible (1996), the Free Association Series (1999-2000), the Home Series (2000-01), Generator (2002), Patterns (2002), Homeland (2004), Hortus: Botany & Empire (2004), Port City (2007), Far West (2008), Supertoys (2008), the Artist/Activist Series (2009-10), Museum Show pt I & II (2011), Version Control (2013), etc.