Senior Curator

OVERVIEW and MISSION

Opening to the public in spring of 2022, CARA is a nonprofit art and
research institute and publisher located at 225 West 13th St, New York
City. CARA will be a space for reflection, un/learning, and
experimentation, working to support artistic practices through aligning
with kinship and care.

Care sits at the centre of our aspirations - both across partners and with
artists, collectives, curators, writers, researchers, thinkers and other
practitioners - to complement the rich fabric of New York’s cultural
ecology and beyond. Our work together will be formed by attending to the
many different streams of knowledges and voices, silences and omissions,
gut intelligences and cosmic forces that inform how we weave our work and
our worlds together.

CARA wants to pay attention to and to look after processes and the people
that enact them. CARA considers this work a vital part of cultural
production, of historical research, and of re-evaluating institutional
models. CARA will be perpetually in-formation and we will habitually review
our activities, concerns, and ethics, in dialogue with independent
practitioners, so we can keep assessing and re-drawing our future as our
work together continues.

POSITION/ROLE

The role of Senior Curator is responsible for contributing to the delivery
of CARA’s curatorial vision and mission through the commissioning,
development, oversight and implementation of the program at CARA in close
collaboration with the Executive Director. The Senior Curator is an
integral part of a team which provides a new environment for artists and
other practitioners to explore the most critical issues of our time.

CARA is seeking a leader and experienced Senior Curator with a
transnational perspective to be involved in all the programmatic aspects of
CARA including: exhibitions, commissions, fellowships, events, public
program and publications. You will be instrumental in the formation and
emergence of CARA as an organization and will be part of the senior
management and artistic team. You will ideate, research, curate, develop,
and care for the full production process and implement, manage and deliver
CARA’s content programs working closely with the Executive Director and
Programs Team. You will be interested in questioning epistemological
paradigms and western frame of thinking while bringing to CARA an
understanding of the diversity of voices in the abundant landscape of arts
and culture. You will be interested in producing cross-disciplinary
projects and blurring boundaries between disciplines. You are a creative
person who likes to take the initiative. You will nurture relationships
with artists, collaborators and stakeholders.

Requirements

ACCOUNTABILITY/REPORTING
The Senior Curator will report to the Executive Director of CARA and will support, supervise, and evaluate several staff members at CARA.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Working closely with the Executive Director and Program Team to develop and deliver a cross-disciplinary program: Exhibitions, Fellowships, Publications, Public Programs and Off-site projects.
• Develop and adhere to an annual plan, timeline, and budget for annual releases in consultation with the Executive Director/Deputy Director.
• Be responsible to research, curate, organize, produce and deliver exhibitions, publications, fellowships, public programs and other programs, as required.
• Work closely with invited fellows, artists and collaborators.
• Strengthen the character and profile of CARA as a locally and globally engaged institution with artists, cultural producers and art institutions.
• Stimulate a critical dialogue, as well as increase the visibility of CARA as an interdisciplinary platform for cultural and social engagement, inspiring and building a broad audience locally, nationally and internationally.
• Act as an ambassador for CARA, liaising with relevant stakeholders and the public, helping to increase awareness of CARA’s role as partner, funder and collaborator.
• Oversee, monitor and create content for the organization’s website (based on a Content Management System [CSM]).
• Such other duties as prescribed from time to time by the Executive Director.

CONCEPTUALIZATION

• Lead rigorous research on potential program initiatives.
• Propose, commission and curate research-driven projects alongside different types of collaborators: from ideation, to processes of production including delivery, reconciliation and evaluation of programs and projects.
• Supplement existing programs through the conceptualization and development of new projects, new formats and events.
• Develop digital proposals and other forms of non-physical activities.
• Oversees the full publications, public programs, exhibitions and other activities through line management of the Curators.

MANAGEMENT

• Line manages the Program Team, supporting staff in their roles to deliver CARA’s program.
• Diligently manage, monitor, and update the annual Program schedule as it relates to the organization’s strategic plan and across the Curatorial team; anticipating, mitigating, and communicating changes
• Work closely with Publications and Public Program Curators to ensure program coherence within the Curatorial Framework.
• Manage relationships with artists, partners, other organizations and stakeholders.
• Support, supervise, and evaluate junior staff members as part of an agreed Continued Professional Development [CPD] and Appraisal system.
• Oversee relationship management with a wide range of stakeholders including donors, funders, curators, artists, suppliers, interns, volunteers, and audiences.
• Ensure CARA reaches its goals with regard to inclusion, access, diversity and commitment to society through appropriate internal and external communication.
• Create and maintain internal communication systems between Development and other departments.
• Perform other duties, including contributing to CARA initiatives, as assigned.

PLANNING & DELIVERY

• Oversee planning and delivery schedules of all CARA programs.
• Ensure programs are produced on time, with clear planning schedules that are agreed with the Executive Director and Program Team.
• Ensure good management and record-keeping of each project and ensure internal circulation of planning schedules and tasks.
• Create and maintain a weekly agenda tracking overall exhibition goals, program specific goals, and ongoing program requirements.
• Oversee all record keeping to ensure that it is undertaken and stored on CARA systems.
• Generate catalogue texts, exhibition texts and articles for print and online.

MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS

• Generate and oversee texts for marketing and communications purposes.
• Ensure appropriate marketing and communications plans and schedules are established and adhered to.

BUDGETS AND CONTRACTS

• Establish and agree upon adequate budgetary planning for individual projects.
• Work with the Deputy Director to create comprehensive record keeping systems for overall annual budgets and individual project budgets.
• Ensure that any potential budget changes are immediately identified and communicated to the Executive Director.
• Oversee the reconciliation of all budgets at the completion of each project.
• Work with the Executive and Deputy Director to create and deploy appropriate contracts for all elements of CARA activity.
• Ensure timely production, delivery and signature of contracts in order to ensure the reputational and legal stability of CARA.

FUNDRAISING

• In collaboration with the CARA Development Manager, conduct research for new funding sources and help to write requests for support from foundation, government, individual and corporate sources.
• Draft appropriate budgets to support fundraising initiatives.
• Approve program-specific budgets that support fundraising initiatives.

EVALUATION/REPORTING

• Create evaluation and reporting frameworks for each project.
• Lead the Program Team in identifying the aims and objectives of individual projects in order to evaluate outputs and outcomes.
• Agree all evaluation criteria with project partners (curators, artists, producers, and others as required) at the commencement of individual projects.
• Monitor projects in relationship to the agreed outcomes.
• Generate reports, reconciliations and further documents as required by CARA, funders, sponsors and other partners, as required.

QUALIFICATIONS/CORE COMPETENCIES

• Extensive experience of working independently with art exhibitions on an international level, including managing budgets for at least 10 years.
• Experience of commissioning and producing projects and have a passion for exhibition-making in the expanded field.
• Experience of managing teams.
• Skills in project management, setting priorities, and time management for multiple, simultaneous projects.
• Excellent knowledge of international contemporary art.
• Specialized knowledge within a specific area of international contemporary art.
• A broad network within the international art scene.
• Excellent English language skills.
• Experience of working research-based and writing advanced texts for a specialized readership, as well as more accessible texts for a wider audience.
• An extensive publication record within the art field.
• Engagement with decolonial thinking and/or global-south discourse.
• Enthusiasm for the collective work of institutional building.