PUBLICS is delighted to welcome curator-educator Samantha Lippett, as it’s new Curator of Learning. Samantha has joined the team in Autumn 2021, and will be responsible for the research, planning and executing of our extensive learning and public program.

In 2021-2022 the organisation will establish a new PUBLICS Youth Advisory Board, offering paid positions for a number of young people to actively support both decision-making and implementation of PUBLICS program and collaborations with contemporary artists. As Curator of Learning, Samantha’s curatorial work will focus on public outreach and connecting with schools, educators, partners and young people across society. In addition to PUBLICS other discursive, and educational strands, Samantha will help set up PUBLICS Youth Advisory Board in partnership with Index Foundation (Stockholm) and Praksis (Oslo) playing a key role in the organisation’s future development and approaches to commissioning public art.

Samantha’s appointment follows an extensive and in-depth search and recruitment process. Samantha was appointed because of the unique trans-disciplinary attributes and experiences of working across and between the disciplines of curating contemporary art, pedagogy and community practice.

Samantha received a First-Class Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Brighton in 2013 and a Master of Fine Art degree (MFA) in Curating from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2016. Samantha joins PUBLICS having occupied multiple education and curatorial roles and most significantly, at the South London Gallery (SLG). During her time at SLG Samantha worked as part of the education team to develop and implement numerous community, education and public art projects and commissions engaging with young people from the South London neighbourhoods. Samantha oversaw the delivery of an annual public programme of international residencies, public art commissions and artist projects for residents’ living on neighbouring housing estates as a curator for SLG’s programme Open Plan between 2017–2021 including major commissions and public works with artists such as Celine Condorelli, John Macedo, Dahn Vo, Keg de Souza, Kaleidiworks, Mai Omer, Angelica Teuta, Basim Magdy and others.

Over the last six years, and through her work at the South London Gallery especially, she has observed the radical potential of committing to long-term work with communities and the value of intersecting creative practice with leisure and everyday concerns. Following a curatorial residency at Rupert (Lithuania), Samantha has taken these values forward with the DIY community radio platform Palanga Street Radio (Vilnius), where she established the research project ‘Common Ground’ with Kamilė Krasauskaitė. This project brings together an international network of practitioners working in community and participatory arts practices to open dialogue about the challenges, joys and speculative futures of the work.

In addition to curating numerous process-led projects, Samantha has established herself as an innovative educator. Alongside her creative work, Samantha has many years experience as a lecturer in Visual Cultures for both BA and MA design students at Middlesex and Brighton Universities. Independently, Samantha has worked with the Wellcome Collection, Gasworks & Triangle Network, Rupert, the Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius, and Šilainiai Project, amongst others.

As PUBLICS board members state of Samantha’s appointment:

“I am confident and very pleased to welcome Samantha Lippett to PUBLICS as our Curator of Learning. Samantha’s task to establish accessible engagement opportunities that attune to a plurality of community interests is not an easy one, but Samantha is openly reflective and collaborative in her process and has already proven herself to be adept at moving between formal and informal learning contexts in the UK. I look forward to Samantha’s work in Helsinki.”
– Adelaide Bannerman

“Samantha Lippett’s sensitive and thoughtful engagements with diverse, disenfranchised and often under-recognised communities are exceptional in their breadth and attention to the societal, historical, and infrastructural conditions that permeate inequality. Lippett’s collaborative projects are premised on a generosity that emerges from an increasingly clear need for many societies to reassess their sense of responsibility and priorities through an inclusive learning process that is not only inclusive of marginalised cultures, ethnicities and genders but expands to the neurologically diverse, the terminally ill and essential/care workers. Lippett’s work has involved several different age groups and has been able to resonate across locations, forms of labour, and platforms: from the housing estates of South London to online radio, and from working with the start-up community in Vilnius to programming at community art centres, the robustness, versatility, and level of awareness in Lippett’s work and research made her the outstanding candidate for the position of curator of learning at PUBLICS.”
– Bassam El Baroni

In the role of Curator of learning, Samantha will support PUBLICS nurturing of future publics for its program and in brings deep curatorial experience of working with young people from diverse backgrounds, and social groups through their participation in contemporary art projects and processes. This new direction for PUBLICS aims to make the arts and culture more accessible to future generations, and to involve them in curating contemporary art, its ecosystem and making things more public together.