Dr Loucia Manopoulou

Bio

Loucia Manopoulou is a curator and researcher with more than 20 years extensive experience in a wide range of creative and cultural environments, both in Greece and in the UK including advertisement, galleries, museums, and the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

She has instigated curatorial projects and organised exhibitions in the UK and Greece and has presented her research to national as well as international conferences around the topic of curatorship and the curatorial. As a visiting lecturer she has delivered lectures covering topics regarding curation, crafts, and fundraising.

Loucia has undergraduate studies in marketing and visual arts and holds an MA in Design Management, an MRes in Crafts and recently successfully completed a PhD investigating curatorial practice as a mode of research with a focus on contemporary British Crafts, performance, and performativity.

Currently a curator at the University for the Creative Arts, she is responsible for the Surrey campus galleries, and at South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell; a Trustee at 318 Ceramics, Farnham.

Areas of interest

• Curatorial theory and history
• Modern Crafts
• History and theory of Crafts
• Contemporary Art and Design

Research Outputs and Activities

Selected presentations

• 2023 Creative Impulse of Craft Curator: Craft Practice as a Continuous Journey at Transformation – Effect and Affect of Craft in Society organised by Craft Hub EU Conference, at Oslo Metropolitan University, Olso, NR.
• 2023 Text/Techne: A Curatorial Approach to Explore an Auto Biographical Poetic Collection as an Aesthetic Experience, at Narrating Lives" International Conference on Storytelling, (Auto)Biography and (Auto)Ethnography, organised by the London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, to be held at the University of Malta and online.
• 2022 Textiles in Text: Text in Textiles at ‘Fashion, Photography, Storytelling, And Textiles’, Progressive Connextions, Global Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference, Athens, GR.
• 2021 Makers’ Tale, at ‘Old Stories, New Narratives’ International symposium, Applied Arts Scotland, online.
• 2020 Performance within Crafts in the Twenty-first century: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Craft Knowledge, at Making Futures, Plymouth College of Art, UK. Abstract accepted /not presented.
• 2019 Performance Art within Crafts, at the PhD Symposium part of the International Ceramics Festival Aberystwyth, UK.
• 2019 Crafts and Music: Intersection and Convergence, at ‘Audio-Research Cluster’, UCA, Farnham, UK.
• 2018 Allusive Crafts: Drawing Words, Writing Letters, at ‘Craft and Text’ Conference CSC & UCA, Farnham, UK.

 Selected curatorial projects and exhibitions

• 2022 Tansa 探査: Japanese threads of influence Process and Making, at Mansion Galleries, South Hill Park, Bracknell, UK.
• 2022 The Colour of The Sea, at Mirror Gallery, South Hill Park, Bracknell, UK.
• 2022 Access all Areas community project supported by National Lottery Community fund, at Grand staircase gallery, South Hill Park, Bracknell, UK.
• 2021 Makers' Tale, at Salisbury Arts Centre, Wiltshire Creative, UK.
• 2021 Beyond Trauma, at Studio and Grand staircase Galleries, South Hill Park, Bracknell, UK.
• 2021 Hidden Histories, at Mirror Gallery, South Hill Park, Bracknell, UK.
• 2021 Arts and Crafts Bringing Us Together, community project a response to Covid-19 pandemic, at South Hill Park, Bracknell, UK.
• 2020 Makers' Tale, at Wiltshire Creative, Online.
• 2020 Sensory Expedition: Colour | Light | Sound, at Mirror Gallery, South Hill Park, Bracknell, UK.
• 2019 Crafts in Bloom, at Balcony Gallery, New Ashgate Gallery, supported by SST, Farnham, UK.
• 2018 Sounds of Making, at Farnham Potteries, Farnham, UK.
• 2018 Women Empowered, Suffragettes showcase, at Sketch.London, UK.
• 2017 Leach Pottery: The Sound of It, at CSC, Farnham, UK [Reviewed by Crafts magazine (March/April 2017)].

Selected catalogues and publications

• 2023, Reflections of South Hill Park, by Consuo Texitle art group, South Hill Park, Bracknell, UK.
• 2020, Hidden Histories by Alison Baxter, South Hill Park, Bracknell, UK.
• 2020, Makers’ Tale, exhibition catalogue, Wiltshire Creative, Salisbury UK.
• 2016, More Academic Choice, exhibition catalogue, CSC, Farnham, UK.

Symposium, organisation and coordination

• 2019 Guilded Conversation, Making Space, Havant in association with Winchester School of Art, supported by ACE.

Selected awards and grants

• 2023 South Street Trust for the Kindness Rocks Farnham, uniqueness, and empathy project.
• 2020 National Lottery community fund for the Access all Areas: Invisible Disabilities project.