Mike Tooby[1] (born 20 December 1956) is an independent curator and researcher based in Cardiff, Wales. His interests lie in integrating the practices often separated in curating in the arts and heritage settings: research, display, promotion, participation and learning. His own practice centres on curating in collaborative or site-specific contexts, where negotiating and celebrating relationships with audiences are at the core of projects.[2]
Journeys with 'The Waste Land' (2018)
Tooby's commitment to participation and social engagement is exemplified[3] by his role in, Journeys with 'The Waste Land', a major exhibition exploring the significance of T.S. Eliot’s poem 'The Waste Land' through the visual arts. Tooby described himself as the "initiating curator"[4] of this project, elsewhere he is described as its "architect".[5]Journeys with 'The Waste Land' was exhibited first at the Turner Contemporary[6] in Margate and then at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum[7] in Coventry. Information about the project (including its timeline, methodology, downloads, videos[8] of its research group in action and visitor data) is available on the Turner Contemporary Website.[5]
Tooby gave the 2018 Ursula Hoff Lecture[9] in curating at the University of Melbourne. In this lecture, Tooby explored how testimony has played a key role in his recent curatorial projects. His starting point was the use of William Blake's Illustrations to Dante in Journeys with 'The Waste Land', which was created by the collective sharing of different life experiences and expertise by over 100 participants in its curating. He will show how this process was informed by his previous interest in testimony when co-curating faith-based and minority cultural projects in Wales, such as The Muslim World on Your Doorstep[10] and Hineni: belonging and identity in a Jewish community.[11]
Professional career
Since 2012, Tooby has been Professor of Art & Design at the Bath School of Art & Design at Bath Spa University.[2] His teaching specialisms are: History of Art & Design; Museology; Contemporary Curatorial Practice.[2]
Full details of Tooby's "research and academic outputs" can be found on ResearchSPAce[14]
Books
Tooby, M, ed. (2018) wavespeech: Edmund de Waal and David Ward - a collaborative work in context
Tooby, M and Shalgosky, S, eds. (2015) Imagining a university: fifty years of the University of Warwick Art collection
Stair, J and Tooby, M (2014) Julian Stair: Quietus reviewed. Archaeology of an exhibition
Tooby, M (2012) Engaging young people in the arts in Norway and Wales.
Tooby, M (2005) Trevor Bell: Heatscape, the Florida six, Still: the new paintings
Tooby, M and Feary, J (1999) Colour in space: Patrick Heron: public projects
Tooby, M and de Waal, E (1999) Modern home: an intervention by Edmund de Waal at High Cross House
Tooby, M, Daniel, S and Barlow, M (1995) From the interior: selected sculptures 1981-1995
Tooby, M and Shalev, D (1995) Tate Gallery St Ives: the building
Tooby, M (1993) Tate Gallery St. Ives, Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden: an illustrated companion
Tooby, M (1987) 'In Perpetuity and Without Charge': Mappin Art Gallery 1887–1987
Chapters
2020: '"Who me?": the individual experience in participative and collaborative projects.', O'Neill, M and Hooper, G, eds. Connecting Museums
2017: 'When forms become attitude: a consideration of the adoption by an artist of ceramic display as narrative device and symbolic landscape.', Petrie, K and Livingstone, A, eds. The Ceramics Reader
2015: 'Veronica Ryan.', Making It: Sculpture in Britain 1977–1986
2015: 'Do not call it fixity.', James Hugonin: binary rhythm: paintings 2010-2015
2014: 'Many-roomed mansion to theatre of memories: thoughts on artists and museums.', Nicol, G, ed. Inspired by: your guide to art and the museum
2013: 'Simplicity and subject.', William Scott: simplicity and subject
2012: 'Look closely.', Kurt Jackson: A New Genre of Landscape Painting
2010: 'Rachel Nicholson: critical view.', Wilkinson, A, ed. Rachel Nicholson
2008: 'The master printer.', Hughes, S, Clark, M and Fitch, A, eds. Hugh Stoneman: master printer
2007: 'St Ives - is it worth saving?', The St Ives School 1997-2007
2006: 'Where does the museum end?', Lang, C, Reeve, J and Woollard, V, eds. The responsive museum: working with audiences in the twenty-first century
2003: 'Trevor Bell.', Trevor Bell: a British painter in America
2001: 'Towards a study of Terry Setch.', Tooby, M and Holman, M, eds. Terry Setch: a retrospective
2000: 'Iwan Bala.', Offerings and reinventions
2000: 'Light the blue touch paper.', Gage, J and Tooby, M, eds. Blue: borrowed and new
2000: 'A working environment.', David Nash: chwarel goed, wood quarry
1998: 'The same subject: sources and origins.', Glennie, S, ed. William Scott: paintings and drawings
1998: 'Peter Randall-Page.', Whistling in the dark: Peter Randall-Page, drawings and prints 1983-98
Journal articles
with Scott, T (2016: 'A journey with 'The waste land'.' Arts & Education (8)
2014: 'Interpreting and learning.' Engage (35)
2012: 'When forms become attitude: a consideration of the adoption by an artist of ceramic display as narrative device and symbolic landscape'. Behind the Scenes at the Museum: Ceramics in the Expanded Field[15]
2012: 'Order and disorder: Some relationships between ceramics, sculpture and museum taxonomies.' Interpreting Ceramics (14)
2011: 'Home and away: collections abroad.' Engage (28)
2010: 'Edmund de Waal: the hare with amber eyes' Interpreting Ceramics (12)
2009: 'More than skin deep: the new Art Gallery of Ontario.' Museum Practice (45)
2006: 'St Ives and Cardiff: two experiences of cultural tourism.' Nexus (35)
Conferences, Lectures and Workshops
2019: Julian Stair: Tea and sensation. Summer 2019, co-facilitator, Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park[16]
2018: Modernism, image and text: reflections on T.S.Eliot and visualisation of 'The waste land'. 29 October 2018, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
2018: 'I can connect': the power of curating to share experiences. 18 October 2018, The Ursula Hoff Lecture 2018, University of Melbourne, Australia
2018: Trevor Bell: his time as Gregory Fellow and its position in the trajectory of the Gregory Fellowships. 14–15 June 2018, University of Leeds, UK.
2015: Tooby, M, Smith, R and O’ Keeffe, D A journey with T. S. Eliot’s 'The Waste Land' 8 October 2015, Ilkley Literature Festival, Ilkley Playhouse, Ilkley, UK.
2015: Another side of Stanley Royle. 29 April 2015, Lunchtime Talk Series, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, UK.
Exhibitions
2018: Journeys with 'The Waste Land' [curator]. Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK, 3 February - 7 May 2018.[6][7]
2015: wavespeech [curator]. The Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Scotland, 20 June - 12 September 2015.
2014: Storio - store. Settlement, Spit and Sawdust Skatepark, Cafe and Artspace, Roath, Cardiff, 17 October 2014.
2013: At the mad shepherdess. Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography., Chapter, Cardiff, 12–19 May 2013.
2013: William Scott: Simplicity and Subject. Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, UK, 7 September - 17 November 2013.
2012: The Museum of Amazing Coincidences. Made in Roath, Cardiff, UK, October 2012.
2011: Kelvin Road mantelpiece. Made in Roath, Cardiff, 2011.
2008: National Museum and Gallery, Cardiff: complete redisplay of art galleries, representation of natural history gallery and learning spaces. National Museum Wales, Cardiff, UK, 2008.
1997: A Quality Of Light: A Collaborative Visual Arts Event. Tate Gallery St Ives, May - July 1997
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