Void Gallery is delighted to announce the appointment of Viviana Checchia as Director.
Viviana Checchia is a curator, programmer, and researcher active internationally and joins Void Gallery from her recent roles as Residency Curator at Delfina Foundation, London, and Senior Lecturer on the MFA at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg. Viviana brings with her long-standing experience as Co-Director of ‘Vessel’, an international curatorial platform based in Puglia, South of Italy, for the support of social, cultural, and economic development through and with contemporary art.
Previous to these roles she was Public Engagement Curator at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, and has produced and contributed to a range of international projects, including the Young Artist of the Year Award, Ramallah and the 4th Athens Biennale.
Viviana has lectured on curatorial studies and contemporary art practice at amongst others: the Centre for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, MA Social Practice and the Creative Environment, Limerick Institute of Technology; the International Academy of Art Palestine, Ramallah. With Anna Santomauro, she received the 2013 ICI/Dedalus Research Award for research into the legacy of socially-engaged art practice in the U.S., and in 2016 was awarded the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory Laureate’s choice for her contributions to the comprehension of and international interest in Eastern European art. Viviana holds a PhD from Loughborough University that focused on alternative Mediterranean curatorial practices. She currently serves as a trustee of cultural organisation, Timespan, Helmsdale, Scotland.
Welcoming the appointment, Void Board member and Curator at IMMA Ireland, Seán Kissane, said:
“The Board of Void is delighted to welcome Viviana as the new Director. She has a fantastic record of achievement in many fields, including the co-founding of ‘Vessel’ with its focus on socially engaged practice, public programming, commissioning, and writing. Viviana has set out a very exciting vision for Void, and we eagerly anticipate seeing how this will evolve and develop in the coming years.
The Board would like to sincerely thank the outgoing Director, Mary Cremin, for her extraordinary work at Void, among the highlights were Helen Cammock’s winning of the Turner Prize; bringing Eva Rothschild to the Venice Biennale; and moving the gallery to its new home in Waterloo Place. We wish her the very best with her future endeavours.”
Responding to her appointment, Viviana said: “I am really looking forward very much to taking on my new role at Void and to working with the team and the board. Art and its relationship with society is one of the catalysts that has informed my work to date and I am excited to see what we can do at Void by way of this catalyst, with the locale and with the wide array of artists, curators and organisations connected to Void. Engagement and commoning have been very important aspects of my practice and I hope to share some of this approach as we shape a future for the organisation with Void’s creative ecosystem that is responsive to the urgent socio-environmental issues of our time and imaginative with the ways in which contemporary art can drive that ambition.”
Acknowledgements
Image credit: Candice Earle-Hutton Photography, 2023
Void Gallery is supported using public funding from Arts Council Northern Ireland, Arts Council National Lottery Fund, All Island Fund, Austin and Hope Pilkington Foundation, Arnold Clarke Foundation, Bank of Ireland Begin Together Arts Fund, Community Foundation Ireland, Derry City and Strabane District Council, Enkalon Foundation, National Lottery Community Fund, The Ireland Funds, Ragdoll Foundation.
