Katherine Dennis

Katherine Dennis is a Vancouver-based curator and researcher. She has worked with a range of institutions, from historic houses to public museums and independent galleries. Her practice bridges disciplines including exhibition making, public programming and visitor studies, and places such as British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. Projects start from a careful consideration of site and context, and then are built on collaboration often resulting in the commissioning of new works.

In 2012 Dennis won the inaugural Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators, a national social innovation award and exhibition opportunity for curators under 30. For the Middlebrook Prize, she curated as perennial as the grass (2013) with artists Amalie Atkins, Brian Cauley, Katherine Ruppert-Dazai and Ellyn Walker. Dennis was honoured to be part of the jury to adjudicate the 2015 prize. She is also the co-curator with Noa Bronstein of Memories of the Future, an ongoing project that invites contemporary artists to intervene in historic house museums. The first Memories of the Future opened in September 2014 at Gibson House Museum with artists Sara Angelucci, Robert Hengeveld, Eleanor King and Matt Macintosh. Dennis has written for a range of publications including Muséologies, a peer-reviewed journal from Concordia University, the Canadian Museums Association magazine MUSE, Kapsula and Carbon Paper

Currently, Dennis is the Adult Public Programs Coordinator at the Vancouver Art Gallery and Research Associate at Pivotal Research Inc in Edmonton. She holds a BFA from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practices from OCADU.

EXHIBITION: The Lowest Relief

August 21, 2015 - September 17, 2015

The Lowest Relief is an intimate solo exhibition of art by Maria Flawia Litwin, curated by Katherine Dennis. In this new body of work, Litwin uses wycinanki (pronounced vih-chee-nahn-kee), a Polish paper cutting tradition, to weave stories layered with personal memories, social history, symbolism and mythology. Each work stems from a significant autobiographical detail in the artist’s life. Yet the illustrations are stripped of overt personal narrative.

Find out more