Fran is an independent curator and design consultant with expertise in the creation of accessible exhibitions and spaces. She has a BA (Hons) in Typography & Graphic Communication from Reading University and worked as a freelance designer and educator in London before moving to California in 2008. She completed her masters in Museum Studies at San Francisco State University. She likes to work on projects that challenge the status quo and increase participation.
Fran recently worked with the staff and Director of the Global Museum at SFSU to create the graphics for “Climates Stories” an exhibit tracing the impact of climate change on indigenous communities around the world. https://develop.sfsu.edu/global-museum-opens-climate-stories-show She is excited to be starting work soon on the museum’s next show which takes a deep dive into the way storytelling shapes our lives and our world.
Fran was the curator for Changemakers: Bay Area Disability Pride which began as a traveling exhibit for the San Mateo County Library system in 2019 and at the Skylight Gallery of the San Francisco Public Library in early 2020. www.disabilitychangemakers.org The exhibit features over 50 portraits of local people with disabilities nominated by their peers for making a significant difference in their communities. The website features audio description of each portrait, while the exhibit has large print text, a Braille binder and a tactile portrait to explore the valuable contributions of local disabled people. Programming included art workshops, discussion groups and dance performances. The portraits were all commissioned from artists with disabilities from Creativity Explored, NIAD, ArtReach for The Arc, Artful Steps and the Pomeroy Center.
In 2015 Fran curated two exhibitions with the disability community in the Bay Area. “DIS/PLAY: a disability take-over” at SOMArts in San Francisco featured work by more than 35 artists with and without disabilities, and “Patient No More” in Berkeley and San Francisco featured 40 oral histories about a historic disability civil rights sit-in and victory in 1977. Fran has taught and mentored graduate level students and created workshops for a range of underserved communities. She was a 2016/17 Equity Fellow at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, grappling with the question, ‘What does equity look like?’ and presented at ‘Disability As Spectacle’ at UCLA in April 2017. As an independent consultant she leads art workshops for low-income seniors and programs of art engagement for those with Alzheimer’s.