Rosie Cooper is a cultural organiser who works collaboratively with artists, thinkers, activists and communities to cultivate the freewheeling imagination and build equity.
Cooper has been Director of Wysing Arts Centre since September 2021, a multi-artform centre in the middle of the Cambridgeshire countryside. Since her arrival, she has developed a new approach for the organisation centred around sharing resources, generously. This has included a significant new public art commission by Rafal Zajko, working with 270 year 7 pupils at St Peters School, Huntingdon, a mini-festival considering culture’s entangled relationship with the land, and ‘Club Urania’ a new LGBTQ+ performance night produced in collaboration with Cambridge Junction. Prior to that, she was Head of Exhibitions at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, leading the organisation into an ambitious new phase of arts programming. Whilst there, she curated the group exhibitions Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance Acts 1–3 with Irene Aristizábal and Cédric Fauq, and How Chicago! Imagists 1960s & 70s with Sarah McCrory. She commissioned solo exhibitions by artists including Alison Wilding, Holly Hendry, Zadie Xa, Hayv Kahraman, Tamar Guimarães and Kasper Akhøj, and Mikhail Karikis with Project Art Works. From 2012-16 she was Head of Programmes at Liverpool Biennial, the UK’s largest international contemporary art festival. She is a Trustee of IntoArt and Chair of Home Live Art. Rosie Cooper is on the judging committee for the 2024 Turner Prize.