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Staff Profile

Staff Profile

Gayle Meikle

Lecturer in Museum, Gallery and Heritage Studies

Background
I am a Lecturer in Museum, Gallery and Heritage Studies and an independent curator. I was awarded a practice-led PhD from Northumbria University in 2020 and received a MSc in Electronic Imaging and a BAhons in Time Based Art from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee University.

My background in practice informs my teaching and scholarship. I have been working in the cultural sector for over ten years. I began as an artist and filmmaker involved in self-organised and artist-run initiatives, including setting up the curatorial collective Yuck 'n Yum alongside Andrew Maclean and Ben Robinson (2008-2013). We produced zines, performance nights and commissioned artworks for spaces beyond the gallery walls. I have a strong interest in the systems and structure of how art is made public, oscillating between rural and urban settings to explore this further. Over the years I have held positions at Deveron Projects (2011) and ATLAS Arts (2013 - 2016) as well as worked with a number of cultural organisations including Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, BALTIC, National Galleries of Scotland and LUX Scotland and have sat on the prestigious Margaret Tait Award Panel (2016-2017).

More recently, my research interests have focussed towards the expanded field of the curatorial. A transdisciplinary discursive mode of working that crosses interdisciplinary lines in contemporary art, museums and heritage. Informed by my PhD research where I have introduced the methodology of scaffolding as a way to articulate the embodied and situated approach many queer and feminist practitioners are taking to contemporary curatorial practice. This way of working is collaborative and site focussed drawing from an intersectional feminist mode of enquiry that pays particular attention to equalities of practice and contemporary challenges when working site-specifically. Through this, the research responds to the task of the contemporary curator as one who must acknowledge the socio-political and material conditions in which they operate.

I have an ongoing collaborative practice with Alexandra Ross titled 'A Polyphonic Essay on...'.  I am also the co-editor of the forthcoming book 'The Commonplace Book of ATLAS' with Emma Nicolson. This anthology chronicles ATLAS Arts activity from 2010 - 2018, positioning the organisation’s research within a global conversation about climate change, indigenous cultures and spatial politics.  



Teaching

My scholarship activity is informed by critical pedagogy whereby I am interested in exploring methods of teaching that promote and develop a reflexive praxis. 

In 2020/21 I will contribute to modules across all areas of Media, Culture and Heritage:

Module Lead

MCH8028 Independent Working in Arts Media and Culture (semester one)

MCH8550 Working on a Project (semester two)

Contributor 

MCH8503 Communication and Learning

MCH8502 Caring for Collections

MCH8532 Management Practices

MCH8599 Research Dissertations

I am co-convener of MGH Futures with Gönül Bozoğlu. Our programme of webinars and in-person events aim to offer a deeper insight into the different pathways and careers in the museum, galleries and heritage sector. I also co-run the student-led extracurricular exhibition-making programme, 'Cabinet' with Phil Deans. 

I occasionally teach onto the undergraduate Fine Art programme.

Research

I am deeply informed by feminist praxis and its conceptions of care.  My research is grounded in material, environmental and object-orientated theories in feminism, and how these theories intersect and connect with contemporary curatorial practice and the changing role of MGH practitioners in the 21st Century.

Research interests include:

  • Developments in contemporary curating practice.
  • Contemporary curating practice and its relationship to care.
  • Situated and embodied curating practices.
  • Polyphony in contemporary curating.
  • Curating practice and its relationship to site.  
  • Critical Spatial Practice.
  • The organisation of contemporary art and its publics.
  • Transdisciplinary approaches to MGH practices.