Karen Di Franco
Karen Di Franco is Programme Leader of M.LItt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) at the School of Fine Art. Her work frequently intersects with lesser-discussed artistic practices and histories — described through materials that complicate notions of archive, ephemera and the art collection. As such, her public projects often involve event and process-based forms with an emphasis on text and publishing. She has written and spoken on feminist archival methodologies, enacted in research and practice, which have developed through her background in digital archiving.
Her educational background includes a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from the University of the West of England, an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London and her AHRC funded PhD research thesis Embodied Iteration: Materialising the Language of Writing and Performance in Women Artists' Publishing, 1968–1979, was a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership based between the University of Reading and Tate Britain.
She has taught across the fields of art practice, art history and writing, working with educational institutions such as the RCA, Goldsmiths, University of Reading and Leeds University. As an archivist and curator she has worked for public organisations such as Spike Island, the Contemporary Art Society and Book Works. Di Franco is currently Programme Curator at Chelsea Space, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL.
She is a member of the Curating and Exhibitions research cluster at GSA and is involved in the research group Feminist Histories of the Future, which recently convened at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds and Calendar House, Falkirk. (2025)
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