Director

Declan McGonagle worked and exhibited as an artist for a period after graduation from Belfast College of Art in 1976 before being appointed the first Organiser of the Orchard Gallery in Derry in 1978. His practice as a curator and Director has included the Orchard Gallery, the ICA in London and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. He has also directed independent projects such as the first Tyne International and initiated innovative Public Art and Community and Educational Programmes.

He has been short-listed for the Turner Prize and has also served on the Jury and has been External Examiner in a number of UK institutions. He speaks and writes regularly on the relationship between art, the artist, and the institution and communities and is a contributing Editor of Art Forum. He was Irish Commissioner for the 1993 Venice and 1994 Sao Paulo Biennale, has served on many Boards and Government cultural bodies and, in 2004, completed the City Arts Centre’s Civil Arts Inquiry.