COMPASS: Emerging Curator Programme

Rachel Ashenden is a freelance arts writer and researcher, specialising in the feminist avant-garde. Her exhibition reviews and artist interviews can be read in Scottish magazines, including The List, The Skinny and Scottish Art News. Alongside writing, Rachel hosts events and interviews for galleries and bookshops on a freelance basis. She has led art history seminars for the University of Chicago and the University of Berlin.

Rachel co-founded The Debutante, a magazine dedicated to illuminating the lives and legacies of women surrealists with an international readership. With Cinetopia, she co-curates a film exhibition UK tour called Electric Muses. Funded by the British Film Institute, Electric Muses sets surrealist films to a live score.

Soizig Carey is an artist, maker, curator and cultural producer. Her making practice is rooted in slow design and making, feminism and anti-capitalist consumer culture. She is especially drawn towards creating modernist and long-lasting pieces, and committed to ethical and sustainable sourcing of materials.

Soizig regularly works to commission, and recycles/ re-makes heirlooms, modernising symbolic pieces. In 2024, Soizig was awarded the Inches Carr Craft Bursaries: Established Maker award. Soizig has previously lectured at Edinburgh College of Art, Glasgow School of Art, the National Museum of Scotland, Dovecot Studios and New York Jewellery Week.

With over 15 years of experience as a cultural producer, Soizig’s curatorial interests include where arts, performance and craft intersect, innovative engagement, collaboration, social equity, and creating access to culture, heritage and social histories.

Working across arts, cultural activism, human rights and civic sectors, Soizig has led collaborative projects between grassroots communities and culture organisations, particularly in recognition of the importance of bridging gaps in cultural and social capital in the culture and heritage sectors, creating opportunities for connection, and knowledge exchange. 

Photography by Gabriela Silveira

Jemima Dansey-Wright is a maker-curator, interested in making, processes and people. She specialises in textiles and has developed a personal practice that blends traditional craft methods with digital and screen print techniques, this work is concerned with ephemera and functional craft objects.

Her practice developed a curatorial element when she began looking for interesting locations and contexts to exhibit. She is a curious and enthusiastic collaborator, learner and skill sharer, her focus is on finding accessible ways to share craft with audiences.

In 2021 Jemima co-founded ESTD an independent space with Morven Mulgrew and Saskia Pomeroy. Together they produced a program of events with the aim to expand the opportunities for local craft makers and present craft to new audiences.

The weekly market stall in The Barras in Glasgow’s East End was a space for the group to experiment with their own making practices as well as collaborate with other artists to create a playful and accessible series of shows and events, including a micro residency, radio shows and performances. Moving forward Jemima hopes to make connections and build relationships with makers and audiences.

Photography by Ruth Esme Mitchell