Interim director named for Turner Contemporary as Victoria Pomery moves to new role

Sarah Martin (Photo Turner Contemporary)

Turner Contemporary’s head of exhibitions will become appointed interim director following the departure of Victoria Pomery this week.

Victoria steps down from her post to take up the role of Chief  Executive at  The Box in Plymouth – a newly opened £47milllion museum, gallery and archive. She has been at the helm of Turner Contemporary for 19 years, overseeing the gallery’s first 10 years of operation. Pomery oversaw the capital project which delivered the David Chipperfield building on Margate seafront. She was awarded an OBE for her services to the arts in 2012 and an Honorary Doctorate from University of Kent in 2020.

She has led an internationally renowned programme of exhibitions and commissions, establishing a creative and exciting reputation for Turner Contemporary.

Head of exhibitions Sarah Martin will step up to the role of interim director.

Sarah joined Turner Contemporary as exhibitions curator in April 2007. She had previously worked at Camden Arts Centre and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead in the lead up to, and after, the opening of the new building. She has also worked at Whitechapel Gallery and Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.

Sarah takes on the interim role as Turner Contemporary celebrates its 10th anniversary. The gallery’s current programme includes ‘The Tourists: Ellen Harvey & JMW Turner’ as well as ‘Ashes’ by Steve McQueen. Barbara Walker’s ‘Place Space and Who’ is also on show at the gallery.

6 Comments

    • Job was badly advertised. And the institution is not widely respected in the industry. It has a slightly odd structure and the salary isn’t really good enough. Victoria Pomery managed the stakeholder’s unrealistic expectations very successfully but in doing so has left a very unattractive job in her wake. I suspect they’ll let Martin keep the job if she doesn’t mess up. She’s not what they want but it’s continuity of the same team.

    • That might have been hilarious IF the institution actually purchased art but it doesn’t so you’ve demonstrated your ignorance twice over. Well done.

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