PANIC! In conversation: Dr. Zoé Whitley and Griselda Pollock

Their conversation explored Zoé Whitley’s curatorial practice and vision for Chisenhale Gallery. Zoé discussed how she selects and works with artists to make their most ambitious work to date by supporting them to take new directions in their practice.

The talk focused on giving an insight into Whitley’s international curatorial practice and research in order to learn more about how artists can situate their practice in relation to current curatorial thinking about artistic practices on the cusp of new directions. Following the public talk, Zoé met Leeds-based artists invited by the PANIC! steering group to discuss their practices.

This was the first of a series of PANIC! activities. Through talks, events, crits and sharing, PANIC! critically engage and address the entanglements of the axes of power: race, class, gender, sexuality and the complex experiences of situated, self-reflexive diversity among the creative communities of Leeds. We hope to share, activate and action the research that has been done on the role and significance of artist-led and artist-based initiatives in the creation and sustaining of visual arts in cities.

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Dr. Zoé Whitley is, since March 2020, director of Chisenhale Gallery in London’s East End. A leading non-profit space founded by artists, Chisenhale produces and commissions new works of art with emerging British and international artists. In 2020, Zoé curated Frieze London’s special themed section, Possessions, exploring spirituality and contemporary art, and co-curated Elijah Pierce’s America at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Previous exhibitions to her credit include Cathy Wilkes’ British Pavilion presentation at the Venice Biennale in 2019 and co-curating the award-winning Soul of a nation: Art in the age of Black power. She writes widely on contemporary artists and 20th century designers, including a children’s book on Frank Bowling and a forthcoming title in the same series on Sophie Taeuber-Arp. 

She serves on the 2020-21 Arts Council Collection committee in the UK. Zoé serves on the boards of Creative Access, the only organisation in the UK dedicated to recruiting under-represented talent in the creative industries, and Decolonising Arts Institute, University of the Arts London. Her prior roles include Senior Curator (Hayward Gallery), Curator, International Art (Tate Modern) and Curator of Contemporary Programmes (V&A).

Zoé Whitley’s research and practice includes working with contemporary artists and art practices from Africa and the African diaspora, legacies of the slave trade and writing about contemporary artists and twentieth-century designers.

Griselda Pollock is an art historian and cultural analyst. PANIC! is funded by the Holberg Prize that was awarded to Griselda Pollock in 2020 for her 50 years of work promoting feminist, postcolonial, queer, and social histories of art, curation, cultural analysis and art making. She taught in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at University of Leeds from 1977 to 2021.