Lara Goodband is a successful leader in the arts and a senior art curator with over 25 years’ experience of commissioning, directing and curating exhibitions of contemporary and historic art in public museums and galleries. She has led a range of cultural teams in publicly-funded organisations and projects that have required measurable targets and evaluation.
‘I thrive on strategic work, on seeing how one seemingly small project can effect a whole city-wide programme. I am well-known for being highly organised, and, during the phases of my career as a freelancer, I often managed multiple, simultaneous large-scale projects. I am passionate about sharing visual arts practice alongside, and in conversation with, other art forms and disciplines. I firmly believe in the power of art to transform and enrich lives: it’s a necessity to human wellbeing and expression. I want to nurture communities’ creativity by sharing creative practice. I also want to ensure that audiences have access to great art of national and international significance through an integrated programme that is both challenging and accessible.
I am an inclusive leader able to inspire and empower staff. As Director of Exeter Culture I set up a steering group to bring new voices to shape the cultural life of Exeter. Working with this group I was able to quickly identify strengths and challenges faced by the cultural sector. This led to my focus on developing Exeter as a centre for contemporary literature in partnership with ACE, the University of Exeter, Exeter Canal and Quayside Trust, Libraries Unlimited and Literature Works.
From my very first job at York Art Gallery, I have given regular presentations to portfolio holders in Cabinet meetings; arts advisory groups; Boards; and other stakeholders. I have led, managed and developed museum teams, and, for 10 years as a successful art consultant and freelance curator, organisational and project teams. Wherever I work, I nurture close partnerships with neighbouring cultural organisations and foster national and international partnership to bring in external best practice. By creating the new organisations Wingbeats, Sea Swim and York Curiouser, I successfully developed and nurtured partnerships with cultural organisations where the projects took place. In my current role, I work closely with visual art programmes and projects across Exeter to ensure shared visions, complementary programming and provide support.’
Lara is currently Contemporary Art Curator and Programmer at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter where she works closely with artists to curate new artwork inspired by RAMM’s collections, including Michelle Williams Gamaker’s film ‘The Silver Wave’ inspired by RAMM’s Arctic collections in 2021 and Joy Gregory’s installation ‘The Sweetest Thing’ for In Plain Sight: Transatlantic slavery and Devon in 2022.
Lara curated Dartmoor: A Radical Landscape displayed at RAMM from 19 October 2024 to 23 February 2025. This exhibition received many positive reviews including in Studio International. She is currently curating the unique exhibition Living Labyrinths: Art & Fungi.
Lara also curated ‘Earth Spells: Witches of the Anthropocene’, in 2023 which included new work by Emma Hart, Grace Ndiritu, Florence Peake, and Lucy Stein, inspired by Elizabeth Webb’s (the ‘white witch of Dartmoor’), cauldron. ‘Earth Spells’ continued Lara’s curatorial practice focusing on the climate crisis. She co-curated the exhibition ‘Offshore: Artists Explore the Sea’ for Hull 2017 and ‘Sea Garden’ in 2019, which included Bryony Gillard’s new film made in response to RAMM’s nineteenth-century seaweed collections in dialogue with film and photography by Dorothy Cross, photographs by Susan Derges and collage by Lucy Skaer, amongst other artists.
Lara studied English Literature/History of Art at the University of York before a diploma in Fine Art and then an MA in History of Art at the University of Manchester. She is a Research Associate at the University of Exeter.
Teresa Gleadowe, Director of CAST in Cornwall, was her mentor until 2023.
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‘Fungi may not have brains, but their many options entail decisions. Their fickle environments entail improvisation. Their trials entail errors.’
Merlin Sheldrake, ‘Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, And Shape Our Futures’, Penguin, 2020
Lara Goodband - contemporary art 