Staff Profile

Dr Gayle Meikle is a Lecturer in Contemporary Art Curation primarily interested in curating as a creative practice. She teaches across the Fine Art and Media Culture and Heritage departments in the School of Arts and Culture at Newcastle University. 

Her curatorial work creates discursive and experimental platforms to present contemporary art. Previous projects have taken the form of exhibition-making, sound and aural interventions, audio interviews, cooking, performance, event-organising, and publication-making. At the root of her practice are two questions: 'What happens when we make art public?' and 'What is the curatorial role in this encounter?'

She has an ongoing collaborative practice with Alexandra Ross titled 'A Polyphonic Essay on...' and Harriet Sutcliffe titled 'Undutiful Spirit'. She is the co-editor of the recently published book (2021), 'The Commonplace Book of ATLAS', with Emma Nicolson. This anthology discusses the activity of ATLAS Arts (2010 - 2018), a rural arts organisation based on the Isle of Skye Scotland, within a global conversation about climate change, indigenous cultures and spatial politics.

Meikle has a sustained interest in exploring the systems and structures of presenting contemporary art and oscillates between urban and rural contexts. Over the years, she has held positions at Deveron Projects (2011) and ATLAS Arts (2013 - 2016) and worked with many cultural organisations, including;  Workplace Foundation, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art; Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh; National Galleries of Scotland; and, LUX Scotland.  

She was awarded a practice-led PhD from BxNU Institute, Northumbria University, in 2021. She received an MSc in Electronic Imaging and a BAhons in Time Based Art from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee University.

My approach to teaching is practice-based, anchored by theory and deeply informed by experiential learning and feminist pedagogy. I follow an ‘Informal Rigour’ approach, which video artist Martha Rosler (2017) describes as a relaxed way of deeply engaging with a topic. To this end, my teaching style prefaces the act of care in cultivating an environment where the students feel comfortable and empowered to think and talk about exhibiting art. 

In 2022/23, I am:

Module Leader for FIN8000: Professional Arts Practice (MFA)

MFA Studio Tutor 

Fine Art UG Dissertation Tutor

Media Culture and Heritage UG Dissertation Supervisor

Seminar Leader for MCH8532 Understanding Academic and Applied Research in Museum/Gallery/Heritage Studies

I run the Fine Art Visiting Speaker Programme and am co-convenor with Dr Susannah Eckersley for MGH Futures - a professional development programme for Museums, Galleries and Heritage students. 

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 art and artists in the 21st Century.

Research interests include:

• Curating as a creative practice.
• Developments in contemporary curating practice.
• Contemporary curating practice and its relationship to care.
• Situated and embodied curating practices.
• Curatorial responsibility.
• Curating practice and its relationship to site.  
• Critical Spatial Practice.
• The organisation of contemporary art and its publics.
• Archives of art organisations and artistic practices.
• Polyphony.