An Espresso with Holly Broughton: Modern Art Oxford Curator on Community & Participation
Published: September 15, 2025 | Interview by Romina Provenzi | 5 min read
Holly Broughton, Curator at Modern Art Oxford | @hollydaizyB
In this insightful interview, we sit down with Holly Broughton, Curator of Communities, Practice and Participation at Modern Art Oxford and discuss the challenges of creating inclusive exhibition spaces. Holly shares her journey from her own fine art practice to her curatorial work, discussing her passion for participatory art, community engagement, and the innovative exhibition 'Movements for Staying Alive.' With a master's degree in Museums, Galleries, and Contemporary Culture from the University of Westminster and a degree in Fine Art from Oxford Brookes, Holly brings a unique perspective to creating spaces that enable meaningful audience experiences and challenge traditional gallery boundaries.
What made you decide to pursue a career in curating?
Initially, I wasn’t pursuing a career as a curator, but exploring job opportunities in art galleries. After graduating in Fine Art from Oxford Brookes University, I went on to study for a master's degree in ‘Museums, galleries, and contemporary culture’ at the University of Westminster in London, which helped me to identify my interest in the learning aspect within curatorial practices. If I look back now, it has been a trajectory from my art practice to my curatorial one, which is all about creating environments and spaces to enable people to experience something. In my day-to-day job as a Curator of ‘communities, practice and participation’ at Modern Art Oxford, my curating is project-based and audience-focused, which illustrates my route into curation.
What are your priorities within your role, and what have you achieved that is important to you?
I'm interested in art for its interdisciplinary nature, which reflects how we all learn and create, and the fine art perspective isn’t the only aspect that matters to me as a curator. Within the learning team at Modern Art Oxford, our priority is communities, and participation is the key to achieving our goals. My own priorities have always been people, collaboration, and the recognition of Modern Art Oxford as a public space in Oxford. In fact, I'm super passionate about coming together with lots of people, sharing our own invaluable experiences, and learning together. That's the biggest joy of my job and what I really love about it. Another priority is testing the boundaries of a work in a space with people to allow me to conduct live space research to evaluate what can be proposed within creative practices, and to commission artists whose work could be touched or moved within a space. I started to work at MAO during the pandemic, which is reflected in our recent exhibition ‘Movements for Staying Alive’ as I was thinking about being together in space, how environments impact our ways of being together and that we have to adapt to them.
What challenges have you encountered when curating this latest exhibition?
When you make things that people can touch, there's wear and tear. Of course, there's a reason why. Typically, in art galleries, you can't touch works of art, and that has been something we've been thinking about, working through and adjusting to while planning and curating ‘Movements for Staying Alive’ at Modern Art Oxford, which hasn’t been a static exhibition but something that moves and shifts. One of my goals was to work with numerous people on this to get lots of different perspectives, and when there are so many people involved, one of the challenges is how to make sure everything is pulled together in a cohesive way. Another challenge was about how to put gentle invitations around the place so people could feel confident to move in the space, because there are lots of pre-established things when you go into an art gallery, like you may feel like you need to stay quiet or slowly walk around. We thought there was going to be a big process of unlearning those things, and the need to put measures in place to allow that to happen. However, we needn't have worried. Visitors were immediately moving with artworks and engaging in the participatory elements of the show from the start.
Reflections on this conversation
Holly's journey is testimony to how contemporary curation has evolved beyond traditional object-focused practices. Her transition from fine art to curatorial work wasn't a departure from creativity but rather an expansion of it in shifting from creating art objects to creating environments and experiences. This reflects a broader movement in the museum sector where curators increasingly see themselves as facilitators of encounters rather than gatekeepers of collections. Her focus on "creating environments and spaces to enable people to experience something" demonstrates how curatorial practice has evolved in recent years.
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS CONVERSATION, YOU MIGHT LIKE TO READ MY OTHER INTERVIEWS WITH CURATORS:
Sara Piccinini from Collezione Maramotti published on Photomonitor
Yasufumi Nakamori, former Senior Curator of International Art at Tate, and former Director of the Asia Society Museum
View all “An Espresso with…“ interviews
Explore more conversations and reviews in my Portfolio, or subscribe to receive new interviews
An Espresso With…
This project is supported by
