DEA VANAGAN IS A CURATOR AND CONTEMPORARY ART SPECIALIST, AND AN ARTS WRITER. HER SKILL IS DEVISING CREATIVE CONCEPTS, ARTISTIC DIRECTION, AND PRODUCING INNOVATIVE PROJECTS, EXHIBITIONS, AND COMMISSIONS.
Dea is the Director of Hauser & Wirth Somerset, since September 2016.
From 2007-2016 she was Associate Director of curatorial collective Artwise, and together with her colleagues, co-curated Vita Vitale an official national pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (Azerbaijan Pavilion) in 2015. In her role at Artwise, she has worked with a range of public and private organisations including: Ikon Gallery, The Crick Institute, Pallant House Gallery, British Airways, Waldorf Astoria Hilton, various private collectors and WWF-UK to name a few.
From 2014-2016 she was Associate Curator for internationally renowned public art producers Situations on a major public art commission for The National Trust to mark the 800th Anniversary of Magna Carta. The project is supported by Arts Council England, The Art Fund, and The Henry Moore Foundation. The next artist will be announced in 2016.
From 2015-2016, Dea was the Founding Artistic Director of The Bomb Factory Art Foundation. During her tenure she established the current Board of Trustees, and together with the Managing Director and the Trustees, developed the foundation’s vision and strategy whilst progressing the organisation to charity status. In July 2016, she stepped down as Director and joined the Board.
As a freelance curator, she has worked with public and private clients including The Cultivist and an ACE-funded touring commission: Caroline Bergvall's RAGA DAWN. She chairs the Macmillan De'Longhi Arts Programme committee, and is a member of the Clore Leadership Network and the DCMS funded networking group Confidence, Choice, Connections: Network for Change, born out of the Women Leaders in Museums Network.
Dea has written for numerous magazines, including ArtReview, Condé Nast: Tatler, Canadian Art, The London Magazine, and the Materialist, and PocketGuide.
Since moving from Canada over 11 years ago, she has curated and commissioned some of today's top creative minds including Mircea Cantor, Mat Collishaw, Zaha Hadid, Damien Hirst, Carsten Höller, Paul Huxley, Idris Khan, Grayson Perry, Conrad Shawcross, Diana Thater, Richard Wilson and many more.
Previously Dea was Assistant Curator of Collections at the Contemporary Art Society managing the allocation of over 200 gifts and bequests to 48 UK museum collections, and co-managed a major commission through the National Collecting Scheme for Scotland - partnership of six National museums, funded by the National Lottery through the Scottish Arts Council.
