Dr Rachel Marsden is a curator, researcher, consultant, educator and arts writer with experience across contemporary arts, culture and curation; higher education and academia, and the VCSE sectors, from living in the UK, USA, China and Australia. Currently, she lives and works in Staffordshire, UK.
Alongside freelance roles, she is currently Research Training Manager, and Senior Lecturer in Academic Practice, at University of the Arts London (UAL); Regional Champion for the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (UK) in the West Midlands, and a member of the International Association of Arts Critics (AICA).
She is interested in practice-based research, inclusive pedagogies and ethics of care. This work is informed by her practice in arts and creative health, specifically social prescribing, disability justice and trauma-informed practice. Rachel is currently a researcher on the international research-driven curatorial project ‘Stomach Ache: Art and the Gastrointestinal System’ (2021 – present), and a member of UAL’s Health, Arts and Design (HEARD) research hub. She also researches contemporary artistic and curatorial practices in China and the Asia-Pacific, with a practice-led PhD in ‘The Transcultural Curator: Translating Networked Curatorial Practices in the Chinese Context Since 1980’ from the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (CCVA) (Birmingham City University).
As an arts writer, she has recently written for Social Works? Journal of Social Art Practice, Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, Manchester International Festival 2021, The Double Negative, SOURCE, Frieze, and more, with book chapters in publications by National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and Sternberg Press.