Experience Skills
Experience
Founder & Curator, Cat Dunn Exhibitions Ltd (2017–present)
Key responsibilities: Dunn leads the development and delivery of exhibitions, public programmes, commissions and learning resources from initial research through to completion. My responsibilities include shaping project aims, undertaking archival, collections-based and site-based research, developing curatorial concepts, writing interpretation, coordinating timelines and managing partnerships with artists, venues, funders, suppliers and community partners. She oversees budgets, procurement, contracts, documentation, risk management, installation planning, public engagement, previews and audience-facing activity, and, also manage project administration, including invoices, receipts, artwork and equipment tracking, condition reports, proposals, exhibition guides, evaluation reports and digital records, ensuring projects remain organised, collaborative and delivered to a high professional standard. Key achievements: Dunn has delivered more than 20 national and international exhibitions across the UK, Europe and The Caribbean, working with artists, communities, galleries, universities and heritage organisations. These projects have strengthened public understanding of contemporary art, curatorial re-indigenisation, Black arts practice, diaspora histories, heritage and institutional memory, while demonstrating my ability to manage complex creative projects, respond to challenges, adapt plans where needed and bring research-led exhibitions to completion.
Exhibitions
CURATOR:
White Ground Black Water (2026) -The exhibition explores the complex legacies of displacement, racial capitalism and historical erasure that continue to shape both places today. It considers how Scotland’s participation in the transatlantic slave economy, plantation economies and the administration of Caribbean colonies has been marginalised within mainstream historical discourse. Wealth generated through sugar plantations, enslavement and colonial administration flowed back into Scottish society, shaping universities, landholdings, estates, civic infrastructure and cultural institutions.
Featuring work by Dr. Alberta Whittle, Graham Fagen, Matthew Arthur Williams and Tilda Williams-Kelly, with creative writing by Harvey Dimond, the exhibition brings together video, performance, installation, photography, sculpture and writing. Across these different forms, the artists offer ways of seeing that disrupt official histories and invite more nuanced, embodied understandings of place, power and memory.
Archaeology and Empire (2026) – National Touring Exhibition
Venues: Stirling Castle; Timespan, Helmsdale; Grinneabhat, Isle of Lewis; Orkney Islands.
Curated a four-artist exhibition exploring the intersections of archaeology, empire, and visual culture. Included archival photographs from Historic Environment Scotland’s Canmore archive, reinterpreted through contemporary artistic practice to examine colonial legacies in heritage, landscape, and material memory.
PREVIOUS
CURATOR
Selected exhibitions:
Circus: Acts of Assembly – Unruly Kinships (2026) (1-year curatorial visual arts project) Goethe-Institut Glasgow :Curated a year-long visual arts project exploring collective assembly, unruly kinships, and expanded curatorial methodologies through exhibitions, public programmes, and artist-led research.
Crafted Selves: The Unfinished Conversation (2024) – National touring exhibition -St Andrews Museum, Fife, Kirkcaldy Galleries, Fife, Gracefield Galleries, Dumfries, of 13 diaspora artists; 7,000+ visitors; national media coverage (BBC, ArtReview, Studio International, Artmag, STV).
Bacchanal: Le We Be Free (2023) – Dundee Museums; reimagined Carnival as embodied resistance.
Love & Legacy: Our Grandmothers (2022) – Matriarchal storytelling exhibition, co-curated with Joy Baek.
Harbinger, Glasgow, Glasgow 2021 - Harbinger -A physical and digital exhibition about marginalized communities dealing with the climate crisis in line with COP26, which was in Glasgow from the 1st -the 12th of November 2021.
NOWYOUSEEUS, Glasgow, Glasgow 2020 - NOWYOUSEEUS - an online exhibition about Identity, social justice and social choreography and the effects of racial bias against women with Afro-Caribbean textured hair – Glasgow 2020
CURATORIAL INTERN
Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Glasgow 2020
Curatorial Project: Assisting with Palimpsest of Voices workshops for the students, guardians and teachers at Oakgrove Primary School. I assisted with the complete set-up of the workshops and worked with the students to produce sketches and clay pieces that would become part of the project's outcome for Glasgow International.
Research: I worked in the office and researched all aspects of the area surrounding the whisky bond, including creating historical archives of past businesses for GSS and The Whisky Bond.
COLLABORATIVE CURATOR
In/Visible - The Hunterian Project, Glasgow, Glasgow 2020
In/Visible: "In/Visible" The Hunterian Collaborative Project:
This project focused on dance and performance, one of the century's most significant and developing art historical fields. "A new performance turn" has emerged, its correlations with shifts in performance, discourses, and broader society, especially in today's world of divisive politics. This project is critical within the current political climate, especially within the context of the Windrush generation, Brexit, and the current feeling of imposed isolation. Collaboration with The Hunterian Art Gallery, April 2020
CURATOR
Project: Reclamation, Glasgow, Glasgow 2019
Reclamation –A site-specific event with Artists Ashanti Harris and Georgia Robenstone
The aim of "Reclamation" was to disrupt the notion of a safe space, as propagated by the frameworks of educational institutions. By initializing performance and interactions with the site of Rockvilla School- the ruin of a Victorian school building designed at the same time as the development of teacher training. Safe space is seen through the lenses of feminism and post-colonial theory, referring to the specificity of being a person of colour or woman within spaces of education and related knowledge power structures.
Lecturing & Supervision
Guest Lecturer, University of Glasgow & University of Dundee (2022–24): Decolonial curating, Black Arts Movement, community-led practice.
Workshop facilitator (2020–24): Intergenerational storytelling, material memory, curating with communities.
Supervised practice-led student projects (MFA/BA), providing mentorship on diasporic and intersectional curatorial methods.
Selected Conference Papers, Keynotes and Public Talks
Citizenship, Culture and Ethics: Working in Partnership through Curating and Artistic Collaborations, Citizenship, Culture and Ethics KE Hub, SGSAH, University of St Andrews 2026: In conversation with Dr Alberta Whittle, discussing research-led curatorial practice and artist collaborations through the lens of ethical care, dialogue, and partnership. The talk explored re-indigenisation as a collaborative curatorial methodology, examining the curator's role as a bridge between institutions and diasporic artists, and the importance of site-specific research in retelling histories of empire.
From These Parts: Scotland, Art and Identity, Panel Speaker, Wardlaw Museum, University of St Andrews, 2025: In conversation with Curator Struan Watson, we discussed intersections of national identity, personal experience, and contemporary art.
Re-indigenisation of the Highlands and the Caribbean: Archaeology, Architecture and Repair, Keynote Speaker, Historic Environment Scotland, 2025 :Explored archaeology, architecture, and decolonial repair as frameworks for community-led heritage care.
Black History Month: Reckoning with a Family’s Story of Slavery, Public Talk with Alex Renton, Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER), Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, 2025 : In conversation with author Alex Renton (Blood Legacy: Reckoning with a Family’s Story of Slavery), exploring Scotland’s entanglement with transatlantic slavery, intergenerational responsibility, and the role of curatorial and public history in processes of reckoning and repair.
Empty Glens, Crowded Plantations: Re-indigenising Heritage through Curatorial Practice, Material Memory and Embodied Knowledge, Keynote Speaker, Timespan, 2025 : Addressed re-indigenisation of heritage narratives through material culture, embodied knowledge, and community collaboration.
The Axe Forgets but the Tree Remembers — Satellite Event and Panel Discussion, Byre Theatre, St Andrews, 2024 : Panel discussion following the screening of Dr Alberta Whittle’s film, featuring Dr Alberta Whittle, Dr Catherine Spencer, and Dr Jill Sutherland. Held as part of Crafted Selves: The Unfinished Conversation exhibition programme, exploring memory, colonial legacies, and collective repair through contemporary art and film.
Curatorial Artivism, Host Speaker, American Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC), 2023 : Led discussion on curatorial activism, institutional critique, and equity within museum practice.
Curating and the Climate Crisis, Conference Paper & Panel Participant, 2022 : Presented on curatorial responses to environmental justice and the disproportionate impacts of climate change on Global Majority communities.
Selected Workshops:
Decolonising the Arts – Glasgow University’s Students of ColourNetwork, Glasgow
Decolonising the Rainbow Flag – Glasgow University’s Students of Colour Network, Glasgow – October 2020
Introduction to Black Lives Matter, Glasgow Connected Arts Network, Glasgow
A palimpsest of Voices art, Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Glasgow – June 2020
Teaching & Supervision
• Guest Lecturer, University of Glasgow & University of Dundee (2022–24): Decolonial curating, Black Arts Movement, community-led practice.
• Workshop facilitator (2020–24): Intergenerational storytelling, material memory, curating with communities.
• Supervised practice-led student projects (MFA/BA), providing mentorship on diasporic and intersectional curatorial methods.
Other Professional Activities
• Curator, Hair: Untold Stories (Horniman Museum, 2020–22) – Black hair, identity, and resistance; 12,000+ visitors. Curator, Forget Me Not House (London, 2020–21) – Women’s oral history installation. Co-producer, Garnethill BLM Mural (Glasgow, 2020). Writer, Pass the Mic Residency (2021–24) – Articles in The National and Herald Scotland on Global Majority artists during COVID-19.
Toolkits
MAKE Educator and Maker Resources: Freelance Content Developer : Panel’s MAKE Educator and Maker Resources - 'Craft and Identity - one of three toolkits being developed in their Craft + series. Awards, Grants & Prizes
Selected Collaborative Projects:
Hair: Untold Stories- 2022
The Horniman Museum -This new exhibition puts the substance before the style and unlocks the untold stories of hair. -https://www.horniman.ac.uk/event/hair-untold-stories/
“At Home” Exhibition –2020:
A Digital Exhibition - Thistles and Dandelions Heritage Group –Part of 23 volunteers on this project, with women from all over the world – galleryofmodernart. blog; Thistles and Dandelions –
“At Home”, a Digital Exhibition - https://galleryofmodernart.blog/portfolio/thistles-and-dandelions/
Pass the Mic – ongoing: BAME womxn selected as expert opinion writers working with media partners to develop skills to better represent womxn of colour
Forget Me Not House | Forget Me Not - The Forgotten Women 2020-2021- This project was an online creative project highlighting the missing narrative of women in house museums. The long-term goal of this project was to see change within house museums and the representation of the female voice. To have their voice permanently displayed whether through their archives or interpreting female narratives within the history of their sites.
Garnethill Community BLM Mural -2020: In response to recent international outpouring of support for Black Lives Matter, following the killing of George Floyd in USA, Scotland’s Black and Asian artists are stepping up. A Scotland-wide Black Lives Matter Mural Trail will be popping up, with displays on multiple arts venues and sites across Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Inverness, with many more to follow. The Garnethill Community is a strong supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, and in communities’solidarity with this movement, the Garnethill Community Council is supporting the creation of this mural in collaboration with the Black Lives Matter National Mural Trail and part-funded by The Glasgow School of Art Students' Association and the Glasgow School of Art. Worked on a series of online collaborative design workshops, facilitated by Ursula Kam-Ling Cheng, in order to allow the local communities voice to be expressed through the mural.
Postcards for Solidarity –2019. Commissioned by Interfaith Scotland and created by Artist Iman Tajik, Postcards for Solidarity explores facets of shared humanity across the globe in the midst of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. Responding to the theme of connecting.
Selected Panels:
Virtual Panelist: Climate Impact Fieldwork– AAMC Conference, USA 2022
Hair: Untold Stories – The Horniman Museums, London 2021
Intersectional Panel Discussion: Being Queer and Black – Glasgow University’s Students of Colour Network;
Intersectional Panel Discussion: Being a Black Woman in Society Today – Glasgow University’s Students of Colour
Network; Intersectional Panel Discussion: Being Black in the Arts – Glasgow University’s Student of Colour Network
Selected Publications (Published)
Dunn, C. (2025). ‘Away to de wata: A Black woman’s reflection.’ In K. Murphy (Ed.), DCA unfolding correspondent. (Dundee: Dundee Contemporary Arts). Journal Article.
Dunn, C. (2025). ‘Of courage, strength and faith.’ In K. Murphy (Ed.), DCA unfolding correspondent. (Dundee: Dundee Contemporary Arts). Journal Article.
Dunn, C. (2025). ‘Moments of rebellion: A Bajan voice across borders.’ In K. Murphy (Ed.),
DCA unfolding correspondent. (Dundee: Dundee Contemporary Arts). Journal Article.
Dunn, C. (2025). ‘Being yourself is a radical act.’ Left Cultures, (4), pp. 82-83, ISBN 978-1-7396285-5-0. Journal article.
Dunn, C. (2024). Crafted Selves: The Unfinished Conversation, Crafted Selves: The Unfinished Exhibition (St Andrews: Fife Contemporary and St Andrews Museums).
Exhibition catalogues.
Dunn, C. (2023). Bacchanal: Le we be free [Exhibition catalogue (Dundee)]. Dundee University Museum Services. Exhibition catalogue.
Dunn, C. (2022). Love & legacy: Our grandmothers (Glasgow: Cabbage Arts)—exhibition—exhibition catalogue.
Dunn, C. (2021). Harbinger (Glasgow: Transmission Gallery). Exhibition catalogue.
Dunn, C. (2021). ‘Covid and the arts.’ The Scottish National. Analysis.
Newspaper Articles:
The National Scotland; The Herald Newspaper
Press:
Crafted Selves: The Unfinished Exhibition - https://www.selvedge.org/blogs/selvedge/crafted-selves-the-unfinished-conversation?srsltid=AfmBOorQsz2nzuzN8EQ5uniOoQsCJicAF47KznkV7lD2CRE90vHRkF-A
https://artmag.co.uk/both-sides-of-the-self-at-kirkcaldy-galleries-fife/
https://www.theskinny.co.uk/art/interviews/crafted-selves-cat-dunn
