Biography
I am an Edinburgh-based arts practitioner often working as a project manager, writer, curator and artwork producer. My practice is dedicated to working alongside others to seek out unrealised potential, overlooked histories or to confront social inequalities.
I have curated many exhibitions featuring over 200 artists such as Jonathas de Andrade, Tania Bruguera, Ruth Ewan, Amanda Heng, Tehching Hsieh, William Pope.L, Santiago Sierra and The Otolith Group. As a writer I have contributed reviews and articles for magazines and journals including ArtNow, ArtAsiaPacific, ArtLink Australia, Art News New Zealand and Contemporary HUM as well as catalogue essays for art galleries and museums. I also make/produce artworks and interventions in a collaborative capacity. From 2022-2023 I was a member of Neuk Collective and since 2018 I have been a member of The chronicle of <_______> collective.
I hold a PhD from Massey University focusing on cooperative exhibition-making and curatorial practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. My long-term research interests include environmentalism, disability and neurodiversity, social psychology and legacies of settler colonialism.
I am a neurodivergent, White/European/Pākehā from Aotearoa New Zealand and my pronouns are he/him.
News
"Under Phillips’ curatorial direction, Te Tuhi hasn’t just reflected its local community but built new, diverse ones within the art world, in ways similar venues . . . struggle to do . . . it’s never shied away from exploring some of contemporary Auckland’s defining questions, particularly around race, class and property."
The quiet curator: Bruce Phillips' time heading Pakuranga's Te Tuhi gallery
by Anthony Byrt
Metro Magazine
15 June 2017
"at the leading edge of curatorial practice and exhibition making within Aotearoa and internationally, this project is an example of Te Tuhi being real innovators and risk takers."
Te Tuhi wins at NZ Museum Awards
Tarannum Shaikh
Stuff
11:39, June 27 2017
"Curating is essentially an antidemocratic profession. This realisation has troubled me throughout my career and to counteract this authoritarian tendency I have tried to develop strategies such as: being aware of latent bias, including many voices, giving freedom to artists ..."