Lesley Cheung

Programme Administrator, Quays Culture.

Course: MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies.

What does your current role entail?

At Quays Culture, a team based at Lowry, I help producers, artists and partners put on festivals and public art in Salford, including We Invented the Weekend in summer. I am involved in everything from booking artists, marketing to logistics, and looking after a collection of light installations that tour across the UK.

I also recently worked as assistant curator of a collection-based learning project called Art Works in Schools. The project piloted a sustainable model of bringing modern and contemporary art with artists’ creative programmes to schools and alternative provision settings. At the heart was a democratic process with children and young people experiencing and selecting art in stores for their classrooms, libraries and nurture spaces.

I assisted in researching and developing a capsule collection that would be conserved for loan and accessible online, while working across curatorial, learning, collections management, conservation and technical teams to test and normalise approaches enabling the project. I also worked with artists to create a visual literacy resource for teachers.

Did you always know you wanted to work in the arts?

I have dreamed of working in the arts sector since high school in Hong Kong, but it hasn't happened until now. I was inspired by the Young Friends student scheme of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, which offered a view into what the arts and creativity can do. After graduating with my first degree in 2016, I worked for some years in public and private sectors, while organising and supporting various arts projects.

Why did you choose to study at Manchester?

I decided on Manchester because it is a thriving city, with a rich heritage of industrial, radical and cultural history. I was interested in how these influences shape the character of the place and its arts institutions.

How did your MA prepare you for a career working in art galleries?

I feel blessed that many touchpoints during the course developed into trajectories that shape my career.

With research abroad funding support from the faculty, I visited exhibitions and conducted research interviews in Europe for my dissertation. The knowledge and connections from these academic experiences continue to inspire me as an independent researcher and emerging professional, as with the lasting mentorship of my teachers beyond the course who kindly share opportunities from their practices and networks.

There was multidimensional access to the Whitworth as a university gallery. Apart from gallery tours, I learnt from conservators about object handling and collections care in a workshop setting. Through seminars in the curating art module with tutor Dominic Bilton, producer at the Whitworth, I understood how principles of the useful, constituent museum can translate to curatorial practice.

All of this was helpful when an opportunity arose to support the Whitworth’s growing touring programme as assistant registrar, coordinating loans for ambitious displays and exhibitions. The experience of collections management, coupled with critical understanding from curating art and creative learning modules, also prepared me for my role at Manchester Art Gallery where I worked across teams to champion using collections in schools.