Dr Cara Courage CV

PhD, Making places: performative arts practices in the city, University of Brighton, 2012-16

MSc Psychosocial Studies (High Merit), University of Brighton, p/t 2009-11; specialised in the psychosocial role of art and artists, ecoart and the grassroots agency of arts in urban placemaking.

BA Hons Social Anthropology 2:1, University of Sussex, 1993-97

Career highlights

Restructured museum division / remodelled centre practice and governance through 2020-ongoing syndemic
International museum community engagement/social practice/co-creation expert advisory/thought-leader
Global placemaking thought-leader/publisher/researcher
Senior Fellow Institute of Place Management 200-plus international conference keynotes, presentations, papers, guest lectures
1000-capacity Hay Literary Festival presentation

Key publications and media
Books: Editor, The Routledge Handbook of Placemaking (Routledge, 2021); Co-editor, Creative Placemaking and Beyond (Routledge, 2018); Author, Arts in Place: The Arts, the Urban and Social Practice (Routledge, 2017)
Recent papers: The Digital Discursive: social practice art online; Power to Change: what is within the gift of the museum?; Learning Together: creative learning and co-creation; Art Museums
and the Idea of Placemaking; Situating Self: co-creating spaces and places; Placemaking as Radical Practice: community is expert; Ways of Knowing: the museum and plural knowledges; The Museum as Relational Object; In Search of Data: evaluating social practice in museums; City of Placemaking?: City of Culture through a placemaking lens; The Activist Museum; Generation Next: engaging the new old at Tate Exchange; All in a Day: creative and collaborative museum programming with and for older people.
Broadsheets: The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, The Times, The Telegraph
Radio: BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, Woman’s Hour

community-driven museums, Contemporary Art, creative education, Crisis Management, emotional intelligence-led HR, placemaking, Public Speaking, Strategy and vision

advisor and member, Advisory Board member  We Are Museums, committee member  International Council of Museums, External Advisor  FLAME (Institute for Learning Innovation Forum for Leadership in Art Museum Education) (US), Fellow  University of the Highlands and Islands MA Art and Social Practice External Advisor  University of Sussex Liberal Arts, founding member  Royal Geographical Society, honorary member  The Future is Unwritten Artist Response Fund (WHO), MA, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), member  American Alliance of Museums, member  American Association of Geographers, member  Common Exchange (international museum social practice network) co-founder (w/MCAChicago)/member  The Culture Capital Exchange Leadership Think Factory, member  Institute of Place Management, member  Placemaking Leadership Council, member  Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, occasional member  Museums Association, PgCert Arts and Ecology programmes, PgDip, Senior Fellow  Museums and Race (US), thinker  Dartington Arts School MFA,  Academy of Urbanism