Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational

What is Transnational?
Highlights
What are our priorities?
In the Galleries
Dig Deeper
In partnership with

What is Transnational?

Transnational is a way of understanding, researching and curating that encourages the idea that art, artists and art histories are connected beyond their countries of origin. The word ‘transnational’ encourages us all to challenge and revise dominant art histories by highlighting the global exchanges and flow of artists and ideas.

What do we do?

The Centre’s vision is to redefine Tate’s existing collection of art and offer new perspectives on global art histories. We will expand Tate’s existing commitment to developing its collections and programmes beyond Western Europe and North America.

In this film, hear about the Centre’s engagement with Tate’s collection, displays, exhibitions and public programmes, and how research is integrated into the workings of the museum.

Highlights

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What are our priorities?

Our research priorities are guided by Tate’s curatorial teams and the Centre’s adjunct curators working in the fields of indigeneity, Africa and the diaspora, and the Caribbean diaspora.

Some of the grounding questions shaping the Centre’s first phase from 2019 to 2025 include:

How does the idea of transnational help us rethink multiple art histories and move beyond established narratives?
How does the idea of transnational relate to our understandings of British art, history and identity?
What are the creative contributions enabled by migration and diaspora?
What can we learn from First Nation and indigenous artists when rethinking the role of nation states in relation to art?

Integrated within Tate Modern’s Curatorial team, the Centre’s core team work with the wider Curatorial team to lead or contribute to exhibitions, collection displays, acquisitions and public events. The Centre’s core team also work closely with the Learning & Research and Digital departments as well as other colleagues at Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives, to connect Tate with a wide network of peers and academic partners.

The Centre is led by Senior Curator Nabila Abdel Nabi alongside curatorial colleagues and the Centre's core team.

Nabila Abdel Nabi is Senior Curator, International Art, Tate Modern. She joined Tate Modern in April 2019 as Curator, International Art, and has been embedded in the centre's core activities, as well as being responsible for organising exhibitions and displays, developing the museum’s acquisitions strategy and broadening the representation of artists from West Asia and North Africa. She has worked on exhibitions including Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life, The Making of Rodin, as well as major collection displays of Anna Boghiguian, Farah Al Qasimi, Huguette Caland, Akram Zaatari, Yto Barrada, Wael Shawky, and Infinite Geometry. She was previously Associate Curator at The Power Plant, Toronto where she worked on solo exhibitions and facilitated new commissions by artists including Hajra Waheed, Abbas Akhavan, Kapwani Kiwanga, Kader Attia, Latifa Echakhch, Vivian Suter, Karla Black, Omar Ba and Amalia Pica, among others. Abdel Nabi has edited and contributed to multiple exhibition catalogues and publications. She has presented her work and been a guest lecturer at institutions including University of Cambridge, Courtauld Insitute of Art, SOAS University, amongst others. She holds degrees from the Courtauld Institute of Art and University of Chicago.

The team is embedded in Tate Modern’s Curatorial Department to carry out acquisition and programme related curatorial work, with a focus on the Centre's aim of contributing to the development of the ‘transnational’ framework.

Odessa Warren is Assistant Curator, International Art, Tate Modern where she works on exhibitions and live programmes related to transnational art histories. Projects of note include Richard Bell: Embassy and Confluences: Stories of Art and the Planetary, among many others. Previously, she curated the first UK solo exhibition of artist Dala Nasser in 2022 entitled Time Spent Without its Flow at V.O. Curations. She has also previously worked with Beirut Art Centre, The Palestinian Museum, Forensic Architecture, and the Palestinian Oral History Archive in Lebanon.

The Centre’s activities are devised and managed by the Programme Manager and Assistant Curator, International Art, HTRC:T.

Steering Committee

The Centre is guided by Tate’s internal Steering Committee, which consists of Tate-wide directors and senior members of staff with expertise in Tate’s core activities including the collection, displays and exhibitions, research and national and international partnerships. The Steering Committee members input into and steer the Centre’s strategy and output and align our events with Tate’s programmes at all Tate sites: Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives.

Advisory Board

The Centre is also supported by an Advisory Board, which consists of external academics working in the field of transnational art history. The role of the Board is to advise and steer the Centre’s strategic direction and to help develop a wider network in academia and artistic communities across the world.

Members

Professor Oriana Baddeley (University of the Arts London)
Professor Monica Juneja (Heidelberg University)
Professor Christian Kravagna (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna)
Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu (Princeton University)
Professor Ming Tiampo (Carleton University)

OPPORTUNITIES TO GET INVOLVED

The Centre offers a variety of short-term posts that are designed specifically to offer developmental opportunities to researchers and curators from around the world. These are tiered to support people at all stages of their careers. Opportunities, open calls and grant applications will be listed here when they arise.

Follow @TateResearch on Twitter for all updates, news and opportunities.

VISITING FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME

This programme provides academics and curators with the opportunity to develop their independent research that aligns with Tate’s research interests.

Updates will be posted here when new Fellows are in place.

These posts provide curators and researchers with the opportunity to remain within the region they are working in and carry out field research in relevant areas for Tate.

The current Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational Adjunct Curators are Portia Malatjie, Pablo José Ramirez, Marleen Boschen and Kimberley Moulton.

Portia Malatjie is Adjunct Curator, Africa and African Diaspora

Portia Malatjie’s research focuses on expressions of African conceptions of blackness – with an emphasis on the sonic and the temporal – in contemporary African artistic practice. At the core of her research is how African spiritual practices, fugitivity, spectrality, and technology are mobilised as modes of black refusal. Portia has curated work by Helen Sebidi, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Yinka Shonibare CBE and Kemang Wa Lehulere. She is working towards a co-curated extensive research and exhibition project that instrumentalises black feminist theory to correct the exclusion of black South African women artists from a broader art history. Portia will soon be taking up a position as Lecturer in Art History and Discourse of Art at the University of Cape Town, where she will be based. She will work closely with the curatorial team at Tate Modern, including Osei Bonsu, Curator, International Art, and with the Africa Acquisitions Committee. Portia has an MA and BA from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and is completing her PhD in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Marleen Boschen is Adjunct Curator, Art and Ecology

Marleen Boschen, is a curator, lecturer and artist working at the intersections of art and ecology. In 2019 she co-curated the research, performance and exhibition project Soil is an Inscribed Body: On Sovereignty and Agropoetics at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin with Elena Agudio. The exhibition considered land relations, anti-colonial struggles and multispecies collaborations through artistic practice. Since January 2023 she has continued the collaboration with Agudio to develop Testing Grounds, an artistic programme on cultivation, migration and agroecological learning for the garden of Villa Romana in Florence. Boschen holds a BA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design, an MA in Global Studies from Humboldt Universität in Berlin and a PhD in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Kimberley Moulton is Adjunct Curator, First Nations and Indigenous Art

Yorta Yorta woman from Australia Kimberley Moulton has over 15 years’ experience curating and writing across historical collections and contemporary artistic practice. Her role as Senior Curator, First Peoples, at Museums Victoria showcased her ability to unite community, research, collections and art through an Indigenous led curatorial approach across global Indigenous communities. She has extensive experience in curatorial work which includes 17 exhibitions with Museums Victoria, various independent projects across Australia and the USA and recently co-curated the transnational Indigenous Triennial, Naadohbii: To Draw Water. In 2023 in her role as Senior Curator and Artistic Associate for RISING Festival Melbourne she curated one of the largest newly commissioned exhibitions of national Indigenous art in Australia called Shadow Spirit. Moulton has also been influential in various public art projects including rejuvenating the Melbourne First Peoples Art Trams project and expanding on the representation of Indigenous peoples through art and cultural practice across the city. Her expertise also encompasses Indigenous Arts Awards adjudication, state advisory roles for the cultural sector and active participation in global exchanges, all aimed at empowering Indigenous communities through art and cultural connections. She is a PhD candidate in curatorial practice at the Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab Monash University.