Viviana Checchia is leaving her role as director of the Void Art Centre in Derry to join the Metal arts organisation in Britain.

Ms. Checchia has been named as the new Director of Metal Peterborough and Cambridgeshire after three years in Derry.

Originally from the Foggia area of Puglia in Italy, the respected arts curator took over at Void in May 2023.

She officially leaves Derry on April 21 to take up her new position in Cambridgeshire.

“I am so excited to be joining Metal in Peterborough & Cambridgeshire. I feel like I have been waiting for this moment for more than a decade: the opportunity to lead an organisation for which social engagement is the core mission.

"I am also super-happy to join a great creative team working across the three Metal locations and look forward very much to learning more about what's been done and what we might do now for the social impact of art.

"I see this as an opportunity to test my citizen-led methodologies further and to implement my curatorial social-permaculture approach at Metal,” she said.

Since 2023 she and her team at Void created a living practice of what is known as ‘social permaculture’ in Derry.

Viviana Checchia pictured outside the Void Art Centre in 2023.

In an interview with the ‘Journal’ shortly after moving to Derry she explained how a ‘socio-permacultural’ approach to art and society drew on the agricultural term ‘permaculture’ which referred to the holistic approach to the development of land.

Prior to her time in Derry she was Co-Director of ‘Vessel’, an international curatorial platform based in Puglia, for the support of social, cultural, and economic development through contemporary art.

She has held several other posts including Residency Curator at Delfina Foundation, London, Senior Lecturer on the MFA at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg and Public Engagement Curator at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow.

As well as this, Viviana has produced and contributed to a range of international projects, including the Young Artist of the Year Award, Ramallah and the 4th Athens Biennale. She has lectured on curatorial studies and contemporary art practice at amongst others: British School at Rome; the Centre for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York; the ‘Social Practice and the Creative Environment’ Masters programme at Limerick Institute of Technology; the International Academy of Art Palestine, Ramallah.

Viviana inside the Void Art Centre in 2023.

With Anna Santomauro, she received the 2013 ICI/Dedalus Research Award for research into the legacy of socially-engaged art practice in the US, and in 2016 was awarded the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory Laureate’s choice for her contributions to the comprehension of and international interest in Eastern European art.

She holds a PhD from Loughborough University that focused on alternative Mediterranean curatorial practices. She currently serves as a trustee of cultural organisation, Timespan, Helmsdale, Scotland.

"We can't wait to welcome Viviana to Metal Peterborough. We look forward to having someone with such a strong commitment to socially-engaged art practice and wealth of experience collaborating with different people, groups, and organisations leading our work here, across the region, and beyond,” said Susie Thornberry, Artistic Director and CEO, Metal.

Metal’s programmes inspire positive change through art and creativity in radical, collaborative and interesting ways. Their work is underpinned by three themes: community and connection; climate and nature; and social justice.