Woodrow Kernohan, director and CEO of EVA International, has been announced as the new director of the John Hansard Gallery at the University of Southampton. Before joining EVA International in 2011, Kernohan was co-director of Brighton Photo Fringe, exhibitions curator at restoration project The Regency Town House, and co-director of experimental exhibition space Permanent Gallery (all in Brighton & Hove). In 2015 he was the curator of the Irish Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale and worked with artist Sean Lynch to present Adventure: Capital, a forensic investigation into ‘anecdotes, hearsay and half-truths, unearthing marginalised stories that have been overlooked or fallen by the wayside’ in Ireland and Britain.
In his role as director of the John Hansard Gallery, Kernohan will oversee the gallery’s relocation to the city centre in Studio 144, a new £28.5m arts venue that is scheduled to open in 2017. Since the gallery opened in 1980, it has been considered to play a key part in the development of Southampton’s cultural life. He will succeed Professor Stephen Foster who, following a 30-year tenure at the gallery, will retire at the end of April 2017.
13 December 2016
