Dr Aneta Krzemien Barkley is a researcher and contemporary art curator. She received her MA in Art History from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland and gained her PhD at the Centre of Architecture and Visual Arts (CAVA), University of Liverpool. Her doctoral research was conducted in collaboration with the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool as part of the AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Awards programme. As part of her research, Aneta co-curated Turning FACT inside Out exhibition (June – September 2013), which celebrated the10th anniversary of FACT’s building.

Aneta’s doctoral thesis described and examined curatorial approaches and models of institutional practice which have emerged as a response to transformations in contemporary art, particularly as engendered by new media art and socially engaged practices. Focusing on institutional and curatorial praxis at FACT– the first purpose built gallery for presenting new media art in the UK – the study examined practicalities and challenges of new institutional and curatorial formats in the context of critical debates about the role and shape of art institutions, new models of artistic and curatorial practice, as well as wider socio-political and economic aspects of cultural management.

Prior to her role as doctoral researcher at CAVA, Aneta was Research Assistant at the Electronic and Digital Art Unit (EDAU) at the University of Central Lancashire (UClan) where she co-organised and co-curated a series of exhibitions and conferences (Digital Aesthetic 2007, 2012) and lectured in the School of Art, Design and Performance at UClan.