We are glad to welcome Melanie Keen to CIMAM!

"I joined Wellcome Collection in October 2019 five months before the pandemic lockdown and much of my time was spent either in firefighting mode or renewing an organisation prepared for a new decade. Having spent the past two years devising and implementing a new strategy for Wellcome Collection, I’m a strong position to reach beyond my national networks and start to nurture deeper connections with colleagues globally with a much clearer agenda. Being part of Wellcome, the global charity, means that a significant part of being able to successfully fulfil our vision and mission requires more outward facing international relationships. I believe that CIMAM will give me a platform to build new collaborations shaped by a desire to collaborate and share resources as much as ideas".

Melanie Keen, Director, Wellcome Collection, London, UK.

"When I joined Wellcome Collection, I wanted to create an environment where more people could enjoy and benefit from the objects and artefacts in the collection, specifically those who had thought a museum or library was not a place for them. I wanted to continue, in a more determined manner, Wellcome Collection’s ambition to both interrogate the collection’s colonial past through research, exhibition-making, engaging in new forms of knowledge and conservation yet also situate the collections in a contemporary context to problematise what had previously been accepted as the norm in museological terms. I wanted to nurture a more diverse workforce by rethinking our approach to recruitment as well as supporting the existing workforce of cultural workers to be more courageous in understanding and examining the roots of the collection and be able to engage the public in more confident, positive and dynamic ways".

About Melanie

Melanie Keen is Director of Wellcome Collection. Prior to that she was Director and Chief Curator of Iniva (the Institute of International Visual Arts). Melanie Keen was instrumental in the revitalisation of Iniva’s mission and vision and put the Stuart Hall Library at the centre of its artistic programme. She also led the organisation’s relocation to the Chelsea campus of the University of the Arts London.

In a career spanning over twenty years, Melanie has worked as an independent curator and consultant, and as a senior relationship manager at Arts Council England. She is an Independent Advisor to the Government Art Collection, is a trustee of Raven Row, London and sat on the Mayor of London’s Suffrage Commission Group in 2018 which saw the commission of an artwork by the first female artist, Gillian Wearing, in Parliament Sq. She was on the Selection Committee for the British Pavilion, Venice Biennial 2019, and in 2023, she was a juror for the Turner Prize. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by University of the Arts, London in 2022.

About CIMAM

CIMAM – International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art – is an Affiliated Organization of ICOM.* Founded in 1962, CIMAM’s vision is a world where the contribution of museums, collections, and archives of modern and contemporary art to the cultural, social, and economic well-being of society is recognized and respected.

Join today, and take part in our network with over 800 contemporary art museum professionals from over 80 countries.

Thank you, Melanie Keen, for becoming a member of CIMAM!