The John Ruskin Memorial Lecture at the Coniston Mechanics Institute

Thursday 26 July

7.00pm until 8.00pm

Coniston Institute, Yewdale Road, Coniston, Cumbria, LA21 8DU

Refreshments will be served

Free admission

Booking is essential. Please email info@grizedale.org or call 015394 41050 to reserve a place.

Charles Esche is a curator and writer. Since 2004, he has been Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands. During this time the Van Abbe has built a significant reputation as one of the most forward thinking museums in Europe.

He has also co-curated Strange and Close for CAPC, Bordeaux, the 2003 Slovenian Triennale in Ljubljana, the 2nd RIWAQ Biennial, Ramallah, Palestine, the 9th International Istanbul Biennial with Vasif Kortun and the 2002 Gwangju Biennale in the Republic of Korea. Between 2000 and 2004 he was the Director of Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art in Malmo, Sweden. He is co-founder and co-editor of Afterall Journal and Afterall Books. In 2012 he received the European Cultural Foundation's Princess Margriet Award.

His main work has involved working on the constitution of art institutions, most recently the museum but also the qualities of the art centre or biennial. His writings on institutional possibility and policy are useful aids to rethinking the relation between art and social change.

The Van Abbe Museum is currently working with Grizedale Arts to develop a 5 year pan-European project to establish new functions and methodologies for museums in the 21st century, centred on a re-assertion of the use value of art and using the Mechanics Institute as a model for redevelopment.