curatorial-blurb

Daisy Magnusson

At the core of my practice is the belief in the possibility of other worlds, in new ways of relating to one another, and in radical exploration and experimentation. Rooted in the larger lineage of liberatory practices, my practice is invested in working with — rather than ‘for’ — in terms of context, history, and legacy, as well as publics.

As a curator, I have dedicated much of my work to exploring ways to not only connect with audiences, but to also think critically about how ‘audience’ and ‘public(s)’ have and continue to be defined. In the final stages of my MA, I co-curated penombra, an exhibition which featured musician and composer Gabriel Prokofiev’s first-ever interactive installation. The show explored authorship, autonomy, and publics through a collection of anonymous responses to a questionnaire distributed throughout London. These responses were displayed across the space, creating a collaborative, polyphonic interpretation of the show’s themes.

During my MA, I also developed a publication and collaborative project exploring the concepts of growth, justice, equality, and misinformation through the creation of an interactive book. The project used soil-based construction techniques—rammed earth and steel rods—as both material and metaphor, highlighting tensions between tradition and transformation. Through public annotations, graffiti, illustrations, and crowdsourced definitions, we invited dialogue that affirmed lived experience and embodied knowledge.

In Shit Show, an exhibition featuring nine emerging artists, we examined the shifting boundary between public and private space through installations, soundscapes, visual artworks, and performances. We transformed the bathroom stalls of the RCA Studio Building into a provocative exhibition site, exploring how public restrooms—those liminal, transgressive, and often overlooked spaces—function as forums for the unguarded. The stalls became spaces of confrontation and confession, of being and perceiving—reminding us that interpretation can be radically democratic when grounded in shared, embodied experience.

I also worked as a curatorial consultant with the Sing Sing Prison Museum, where I collaborated with their curatorial team to help solidify audience, clarify institutional values, and reimagine spatial design. In particular, we worked together to consider what story the historic grounds of Sing Sing were telling—and how that story might be reframed to center the voices and lived experiences of incarcerated individuals, both past and present. My role involved helping the museum explore ways to interpret its difficult heritage responsibly, ethically, and with an eye toward inclusivity.

Most recently, I have worked as a curator for the Campervan Collective’s Carnival of Collabor-ART; a series of performance-based programs that emphasize collaboration and process through the lens of ‘Carnival’. I assisted the collective in the development of a four-day public art festival rooted in the traditions of resistance and play. The event centered a textile-covered float bearing community responses to political prompts, surrounded by participatory installations, workshops, and performances. Participating artists included Vlatka Horvat (Croatian Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2024), Delaine Le Bas (2024 Turner Prize nominee), and Dr. Harold Offeh, whose work has been exhibited at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.