Rum Retort is curated by Tiffany Boyle and Natalia Palombo for Mother Tongue
Natalia Palombo is an arts producer with focus on African contemporary visual art and film. Her research is centred on critical and convivial conversation in the arts, addressing issues of access to creative and cultural activity, expectations within arts practice, and creative outcomes in areas of regeneration. She works collaboratively in her practice, building partnerships and links to traverse critical subjects and activity within the sphere of contemporary art, its market, institutions and independent art spaces.
In 2011, Natalia co-founded The Telfer Gallery, and sat on the curatorial team until 2013. From 2013 – 2016, she worked in a freelance capacity as an arts producer collaborating with organisations internationally, including; British Council, World Design Capital, Pidgin Perfect, Connect ZA, The Ar(t)chive, Bushveld Labs, Department of Arts and Culture South Africa, National Film and Video Federation (South Africa), Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism (Trinidad and Tobago), Visiting Arts. During this period she was also part of the managerial and directorial team at Africa in Motion Film Festival.
In January 2016, she took up the position of Managing Director at MANY Studios, where she is curating a multi-disciplinary arts programme in the east end of Glasgow.
Tiffany Boyle is a curator, researcher and writer, and co-founder of Mother Tongue. Tiffany is leading on the archival and collection research for Mother Tongue’s forthcoming ‘AfroScots’ exhibition project. This research seeks to bring into a single narrative for the first time the presence, work and exhibition histories of Black artists in Scotland, both historically and in the present. This research is funded by a Paul Mellon Centre Research Support grant.
Together with Viviana Checchia, Curator of Public Engagement at Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow, and researcher Dr Emma Balkind, Tiffany co-convenes the Invisible Knowledge initiative based at the CCA and supported by Glasgow School of Art. ‘Invisible Knowledge’ is a new group for independent researchers in the arts, primarily aimed at independent, PhD, and early-career researchers, acting as a platform to give visibility and translate the groups’ work to new, public audiences. She is regularly asked to teach at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Tiffany has written for journals, magazines and online platforms, such as Africa is a Country and MAP magazine.
Mother Tongue is a research-led, independent curatorial practice formed in 2009 by Tiffany Boyle and Jessica Carden in response to individual periods of investigation in northern Scandinavia and West Africa. Our practice in exhibition-making intersects with research interests - including, but not limited to - post colonialism, language, heritage, ethnicity, whiteness, indigenousness, migration, movement, sexuality, and technology. Since 2009, we have produced exhibitions, film programmes, discursive events, radio broadcasts, poster series, essays and publications, in partnership with galleries, museums, and festivals.
Mother Tongue has undertaken residencies in Scotland, Sweden, Finland and Barbados, and participated on the 2011/12 Curatorlab programme at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm. Together with the CCA Glasgow, David Dale Gallery and British Council Scotland, Mother Tongue is a partner on the newly-launched Tilting Axis Fellowship: a year-long and mentorship-based curatorial fellowship for a Caribbean-based practitioner working in the Caribbean to undertake research across the region and in Scotland.