Art Fund announces New Collecting Awards

The Art Fund has given a total of £300,000 to five curators to help them grow the collections of their museums.

The money has been distributed through the New Collecting Awards, a scheme that has awarded 35 curators more than £1.8m over the past six years. The Art Fund, the national fundraising charity for art, provides each beneficiary with a budget for acquisitions alongside funding for research, travel, and training, plus the support of a mentor and Art Fund staff and trustees. 

The 2020 New Collecting Awards winners are:

Louise Pearson, Curator (Photography), National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

Pearson will use Scotland’s census data to identify groups which are underrepresented in the national photography collection and address these gaps by acquiring and commissioning photographs that reflect the true breadth of Scotland’s population. These groups are likely to include single parent families, people of a mixed ethnic background, individuals from the Pakistani and Polish communities and residents of the Scottish islands.

Marenka Thompson-Odlum, Research Associate, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

Thompson-Odlum will collect new works by indigenous artists from around the world to question and interact with the colonial past of the museum’s collections and find new ways of telling stories. The project will focus on the following indigenous cultures: Ainu (Japan), Haida (North America), Edo (Nigeria), and Polynesian (focusing on Hawaii). It is an extension of Thompson- Odlum’s Labelling Matters project, which explores the often-problematic historic language used within the Pitt Rivers Museum when referring to objects. The new indigenous works will focus on language and self- determination and include works that use written language, textile works, sculptures and performance art (video/digital art).

Andrew Ferrara, Project Curator, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Norwich

Ferrara’s project will build a collection of medieval East Anglia coins, ranging from the 7th to 12th century, which will help expand the numismatic collections of Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery and deepen the understanding of the region’s medieval history.

Xiaoxin Li, Curator (China), V&A, London

Li will research and collect contemporary Chinese studio craft, a field significantly under- represented both inside and outside China. Li will help expand the V&A’s expertise on the field by acquiring applied art works created using craft techniques from the 1980s to today.

Catherine Troiano, Curator, National Photography Collections, National Trust

Troiano will develop a collection of photography that represents diverse experiences of British heritage and speaks to local, regional and national histories. The project seeks to expand the trust's existing national collections of photography, which are richest in material from the 1840s to the mid-20th century. Collecting will focus on emerging and established photographers working in Britain, whose work engages with varied perspectives of identity, land and history.

The New Collecting Awards are supported by a number of individuals and trusts, including the Wolfson Foundation, the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts, and the Coral Samuel Charitable Trust.