Kia ora to our new Senior Curator Chelsea Nichols

Author: Steph McDonald, Communications Manager

We’re excited that Dr Chelsea Nichols will be joining our team as Senior Curator in early July. 

Chelsea is a curator and writer with a passion for the weird, dark corners of art and history.

She joins us after a year as a freelance writer, and was previously at Te Papa, where she was the Curator Modern Art from 2013-2019, with projects including the family-focused exhibition Curious Creatures & Marvellous Monsters, and Tony Fomison: Lost in the Dark.

With a PhD from the University of Oxford on human curiosities in contemporary art, she has worked in a wide range of museum and gallery roles across Canada, UK and NZ. For the past year Chelsea has been living with her family in Guangzhou, China, where she’s been working on several book projects and her blog The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things.

Karl Chitham, Director of Museums at Hutt City Council, says “we are really excited to have Chelsea join our team. She brings a wealth of experience and really shares our passion for engaging with our diverse audiences at The Dowse and Petone Settlers Museum. Her experience in collaboration is a real asset and we look forward to seeing how this might inspire some new ways of looking at both our exhibition programmes and collections.”

We’re so happy to have Chelsea’s creative brain working with us on new exhibitions and projects. Watch this space!