Dr Tamsin Silvey has worked for over 17 years in art and heritage organisations, specialising in developing inclusive engagement programmes in partnership with national and local cultural organisations. Her aim is to facilitate, curate and sustain public arts and heritage projects that contribute to social justice and creating a more equitable world.
Since 2015 she has been Cultural Programme Curator at Historic England, where she has set the strategic approach for cultural programming since the organisation formed in the same year, growing the programme and adapting to changing corporate priorities to promote public engagement with heritage. At Historic England, she has curated 10 free exhibitions in museums, galleries and outdoors across the country, seen by over 2 million people and commissioned over 70 creatives including visual artists, writers, poets, installation artists, musicians, sound artists, photographers, puppeteers and filmmakers. Tamsin has brokered and managed hundreds of national and local partnerships to deliver thematic projects and instigated a new contemporary collecting strand with over 600 photographs entering Historic England’s Archive from the public and commissioned photographers. Tamsin curated the £1.2m co-created commissions programme of Historic England’s nationwide High Streets Heritage Action Zones Cultural Programme (2020-24), the largest ever publicly funded and community-led arts and heritage cultural programme in England.
Previously, Tamsin worked at Candlestar where, for 8 years, she managed the Prix Pictet photography prize and international exhibition tour raising awareness of environmental sustainability and helped shape the inaugural edition of Photo London commercial art fair.
In 2023, Tamsin completed a PhD in the History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London, interrogating how conflict photographs have been curated within temporary exhibitions at British museums from 2010-20.
Tamsin is a trustee at Photo Fringe and the Photography Collections Network, a mentor for Redeye working with emerging photographers, an advisor for the Institute of Curiosity and Curating and sits on the board of the City of London’s Arts Initiative, assessing proposals for new artworks to be sited in the City’s public realm. She is a nominator for the Prix Pictet and an Associate Tutor for Birkbeck’s MA History of Art course.
Tamsin is committed to building partnerships and curating projects that produce quality outputs that are relevant to and shaped by local communities and deliver public value.
