Simon Morrissey

Simon Morrissey is a curator, writer and cultural producer whose practice responds to the idea of people and place as generators for curatorial and social projects.

Simon is the Director of Foreground. Working primarily in the South West of England, Foreground commissions new temporary and permanent artworks in the diverse social and physical structures of communities, a process which often sees the public become collaborators in the creation of the commissioned artworks.

He is also the founder and convenor of the research group Document and Location. Established as a partnership between Foreground and academics at The University of the West of England, Document and Location investigates how our understanding of place is directly formed through how locations are recorded and subsequently narrated by different disciplines.

His curatorial projects beyond Foreground have been produced in a diversity of contexts including public galleries and museums in the UK, a major international touring exhibition for the British Council, and leading commercial galleries. Simon’s recent independent curatorial projects include ‘Qwaypurlake’, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2015⁠–⁠16 and ‘We The People Are The Work’, a major multi-site project across Plymouth, 2017.

He has written extensively on contemporary art throughout his career, often using fiction as a device for the discussion of art and ideas. He has written and edited publications for numerous leading galleries and publishers in Britain and internationally, including Tate Publishing; British Council; ICA, London; Camden Art Centre, London; Barbican, London; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, France; Kunstverien Frieburg, Germany; Mjellby Konstgard, Hamlstad, Sweden; Universidad de Salamanca, Spain; Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea.

Simon is Associate Professor in Fine Art, University of the West of England, Bristol.

foregroundprojects.org.uk
documentandlocation.org

Researchers