For this online talk at NN Contemporary Art, we invited Amy Emmerson Martin to discuss her curatorial practice with a special focus on collections and displays in an institutional setting. We explored how institutions maintain and build their collections, care for artists and their artworks’ representation through displays and how art canons feed into contemporary curatorial practice and exhibition-making.

Amy Emmerson Martin is an Assistant Curator of International Art at Tate Modern focusing on the museum’s collection displays, exhibitions and acquisitions. Most recently she has curated displays of the work of international artists including Patricia Belli and Sharon Hayes and been part of the curatorial team responsible for displays centred on sculpture of Jimmie Durham and video installation of Shirin Neshat. Alongside these activities she works on collection acquisitions, with a specialism in contemporary European artists, brining works by Carol Rama and Franz West into Tate’s collection. Amy is currently working on the forthcoming major retrospective of Sophie Taeuber-Arp exhibition, which will open at Tate Modern 15 th July 2021.

Image credit: Everything Else Has Failed! Don’t You Think It’s Time For Love?, Sharon Hayes, 2007, Photo: © Tate, London [2021].