Rosa Abbott is a writer and curator based in London.

She holds an MA in Culture, Criticism and Curation from Central Saint Martins (2019) and BA(Hons) English Literature/History of Art and Architecture from Trinity College Dublin (2012).

Rosa’s curatorial practice is informed by her fascination with pop culture, material culture, and literature. She enjoys working with early-career artists in unconventional settings, from exhibitions in former police stations to poetry readings in the marshes. Sociality, subjectivity and discussion are foregrounded, as is the joy of reading, sharing and generating texts. She is interested in embodiment, desire, excess, voyeurism, decadence, hauntology, mysticism, transformation, and LGBTQ+ histories, including the legacy of the HIV/AIDs crisis.

Rosa has given tours, talks and lectures to students of various third-level institutions, including Goldsmiths, Birkbeck, Chelsea, Central Saint Martins, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, NCAD, IADT and TU Dublin.

︎: rosa.vertov@protonmail.com





Alongside Roisin Agnew and Iarlaith Ni Fheorais, Rosa is a co-founder of the curatorial collective Liquid, which explores expressions of intimacy in public and private realms.

︎ l-i-q-u-i-d.art


Interests & Obsessions



EDUCATION
  • MA Culture, Criticism and Curation (1st), Central Saint Martins, 2019 – Distinction
  • BA(Hons) History of Art & Architecture / English Literature (II:1), Trinity College Dublin, 2012

CURATORIAL PROJECTS
  • Confessions, Lismore Castle Arts – The Mill, 29 July – 3 September 2023 (forthcoming)
  • THE BLUE, THE PINK, THE IMMATERIAL, THE VOID, Austrian Cultural Forum, London, 2022 (co-curator with Krishna Balakrishnan)
  • Silver-Tongued Seas, two-person exhibition by Maïa Nunes & Pádraig Spillane, Jupiter Woods, London, 16–31 October 2021 (co-curator with Iarlaith Ni Fheorais for Liquid)
  • I Like to Watch, online exhibition, Liquid, 26 November 2020 – 25 January 2021
  • Meet Me in the Marshes (curated by Liquid), Hackney Marshes, London, 1 August 2020
  • No horizon, no edge to liquid (co-curator), Zabludowicz Collection, London, 16 January – 23 February 2020
  • We breathe in the space between (co-curator), MIR Project Space, London, 1–17 November 2019
  • I Am Dynamite (co-curator with Roisin Agnew), The Complex, Dublin, 22–23 September 2018  

CATALGUE ESSAYS & COMMISSIONED TEXTS
  • ‘Flashes of Light, Echoes of Drumbeats’, response to Clíodhna Timoney at VISUAL Carlow, 2022
  • 6 artist Q&As for New Contemporaries 2021
  • 12 artist texts for The Great Invocation, GARAGE, Rotterdam, 2021
  • ‘You Want It Darker’, catalogue essay for Liliane Tomasko, dark goes lightly, Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provene, 2019
  • ‘Is there smoke in the room?’, text-based artwork included in I AM SO MULTIPLE IN NIGHTS, The Pool, SB34, Brussels
  • ‘Full Circle: The Pop Cultural Orbit of Theosophical Thought’, catalogue essay for A Modern Panarion: Glimpses of Occultism in Dublin, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, 2013 

SELECTED WORK EXPERIENCE
  • Media & Curatorial Liaison, Kerlin Gallery, February 2022 – ongoing
  • Curator of Editorial, VISUAL Carlow, February 2022 – ongoing
  • Assistant Curator, VISUAL Carlow, May 2021 – January 2022
  • Press/Communications, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, 2015–2018
  • Editorial Assistant, The Gloss Magazine, 2013–2015
  • Arts Editor, Totally Dublin, 2010–2015

RESIDENCIES
  • Austrian Cultural Forum Curatorial Residency in Vienna, January 2022

TALKS, TOURS & LECTURES
  • Artist Q&A with Nathalie Du Pasquier, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, September 2022
  • Curating talk for students of Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, January 2022
  • Exhibition walkthrough for students of Goldsmiths MFA Curating, October 2021
  • Curating talk for students of Curating Culture at Birkbeck, February 2021
  • Curating talk for students of Curating Contemporary Art at Chelsea School of Art, December 2020 
  • Life After: one-hour talk for students of MA Culture, Criticism and Curation at Central Saint Martins, December 2020
  • Curator’s tour of No horizon, no edge to liquid at Zabludowicz Collection, January 2020
  • Professional Practice guest lecture for students of BA Fine Art, TU Dublin, November 2019
  • Future of Irish Feminism panel chair, I Am Dynamite, The Complex, Dublin, 22 September 2018 
  • Exhibition tour of Kathy Prendergast’s Atlas at Kerlin Gallery for Dublin Gallery Weekend, 26 November 2016

BOARD/COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS
︎: rosa.vertov@protonmail.com