Panel Discussion: How are the climate and nature crises reshaping our curatorial practice?
PLUS the fourth annual AAH Curatorial Prizes awards
Friday, 16 May 2025, 18:00-20:30
The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6EJ
Free to attend, in-person.
We’re delighted to host an evening of curatorial interest: a panel discussion with Jago Cooper, Sarah Wade and Kinnari Saraiya on ‘How are the climate and nature crises reshaping curatorial thinking and practice?’ moderated by Thomas Ardill.
We will also present the fourth annual AAH Curatorial Prizes awards and host a drinks reception.
Programme
18:00 — Arrivals
18.30pm — Welcome: Gregory Perry
18.40-19.15 — Panel Discussion
19.15-19.40 — Curatorial Prizes
19.40-20.30 — Drinks
AAH Curatorial Prizes 2025
Our annual prizes, established in 2021, acknowledge the achievements and contributions of art curators in public museums and galleries in the UK. They recognise the essential work of curators in creating knowledge and sharing research with varied audiences, as well as in providing expertise about collections and the history of art more generally.
Prizes are awarded for the categories of:
- Exhibitions
- Curatorial Writing and Publications
Panel discussion: How are the climate and nature crises reshaping curatorial thinking and practice?
This year is predicted to join 2023 and 2024 as one of the three hottest on record, all three being more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial era. It is therefore appropriate that climate change, biodiversity loss and the environment are all prominent topics in exhibitions across the UK and the world in 2025. Art historians and curators are responding to these crises in many different ways, and the Association of Art Historians is keen to support those seeking to address issues of sustainability and climate action in their work.
This panel discussion will consider recent curatorial responses to the climate and nature crises. It has been devised by Thomas Ardill and Ken Paranada for the Climate Working Group of the Association for Art History’s Curatorial Committee.
Panellists Jago Cooper, Sarah Wade and Kinnari Saraiya, will share their recent work and thinking, and discuss issues, ideas, challenges, and opportunities around curating in response to climate change and climate justice. They will touch on interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches, showing how curators are working with academics, artists, and communities to platform diverse perspectives. The session will welcome questions for the panellists and audience contributions offering further insights, ideas and debate on how curatorial thinking and practice can respond to one of the biggest challenges of our time.
Panel
Chair: Thomas Ardill, Curator of Paintings, Prints and Drawings at London Museum
Jago Cooper, Director of the Sainsbury Centre and Professor of Art and Archaeology at UEA; curator of Arctic: Culture and Climate at the British Museum (2020)
Kinnari Saraiya, Curator, Somerset House and curator of Salt Cosmologies at Somerset House (2025
Sarah Wade, Associate Professor in Museum Studies at University of East Anglia and curator of Sea Inside exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre (2025)
Association of Art Historians’ statement on Climate Change: https://forarthistory.org.uk/about/who-we-are/committees/curatorial-committee/resources-for-curators/climate-change/
Panellist biographies
Thomas Ardill is curator of paintings, prints and drawings at London Museum and curator of the recent exhibition A World of Care: Turner and the Environment (Turner’s House, 2024). He is consultant curator for the current exhibition: Secrets of the Thames: Mudlarking London’s Lost Treasures (London Museum Docklands, until 1 March 2026), and is currently content lead for the forthcoming London Life and London’s Landscape permanent displays (London Museum, 2026). His next publication is ‘Turner and his Eco Critics’, a short overview of scholarship on J.M.W. Turner and the environment for the Turner and Constable exhibition catalogue (Tate, forthcoming 2025).
Jago Cooper is Director of the Sainsbury Centre and Professor of Art and Archaeology at UEA. For more than twenty years Jago has worked for and with museums, cultural ministries, technology companies, and heritage organisations around the world to explore and communicate aspects of the great human story. His research ranges broadly across universal questions facing global society including climate change, technological revolution and colonial encounters. Jago engages a broader public audience with his research interests creating exhibitions, digital platforms and broadcast media including writing and presenting several documentaries for the BBC. After a decade working for the British Museum as the Head of the Americas and curating the Arctic: Culture and Climate (2020) among other landmark exhibitions, Jago joined the Sainsbury Centre at UEA which recognizes the living lifeforce of art and is ‘the UK’s most radical museum’ according to the Guardian.
Kinnari Saraiya is a London-based Indian artist, curator, researcher, writer, and folk dancer. Her curatorial practice engages with climate justice through a Global South lens, aligning with trans-altern and post-humanist thinking. She works to build intersectional structures and ecologies of interdependence that centre equity, resilience, and repair. Kinnari is currently Curator at Somerset House and has held curatorial roles at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Frieze Art Fair, and the Bowes Museum. Most recently, she curated Salt Cosmologies (Somerset House, 2025) with Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser.
Sarah Wade is an art historian and Associate Professor in Museum Studies at University of East Anglia. She has published widely on extinction and wildlife conservation issues in artistic and curatorial practice and is co-founder of the ‘Curating the Sea’ research project, which has resulted in a special issue of the Journal of Curatorial Studies (2020), Oceans: Documents of Contemporary Art (MIT Press/Whitechapel Gallery, 2023) and the forthcoming exhibition Sea Inside (2025). Sarah holds a PhD in History of Art from University College London. Over the years she has worked with various museums and heritage organisations in research, project management and curatorial capacities and continues to collaborate with museum colleagues on research projects and exhibitions.
Image Credit: Julian Charrière, Midnight Zone, 2024. Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany