Melanie Pocock, who has been appointed as the curator of Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery, will begin her new role this month. Previously, she taught at Singapore’s LASALLE College of the Arts from 2013–14 following an MA in Curating Contemporary Art at London’s Royal College of Art. She then worked as assistant curator for six years at the LASALLE’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. During her time there, she organised multiple exhibitions including Countershadows (tactics of evasion) (2014), Native Revisions (2017), and Dissolving Margins (2018–19). Pocock is a contributor to ArtAsiaPacific and edited the first monograph of Malaysian artist Shooshie Sulaiman for Kerber Verlag, published in 2014. She has also held curatorial roles at the Modern Art Oxford, UK, and Art Scene China gallery, Shanghai.
On her appointment as Ikon’s curator, Pocock has said: ‘I’ve long been inspired by the internationalism of Ikon’s programme and the depth of its work with local communities. For decades, Ikon’s artist-centric approach, from career-changing solo exhibitions to pioneering off-site projects, has set its program apart.’
Jonathan Watkins, director of Ikon, welcomes Pocock, saying that she ‘brings a wealth of experience that fits well with our program overall, complementing and refreshing our engagement with the international art world.’
3 January 2020
