Stephen Foster began his career as an artist, teacher and lecturer, and began his curatorial career as the Director of Axiom, an artist-run Gallery space in Cheltenham from 1982 to 1987. Since 1987 he has been the Director of the John Hansard Gallery at the University of Southampton, during which time the Gallery has won a substantial reputation for seminal work with artists and curators. The Gallery was designated ‘world leading’ for its curatorial research in the last Universities’ Research Assessment Exercise and has also pioneered groundbreaking access and audience development work.

Stephen has been Chair of VAGA (Visual Arts and Galleries Association) on three occasions and is currently Treasurer of IKT (International Association of Curators’ of Contemporary Art). He was also a founder of VEKTOR, a European contemporary art archive research project from 2000 to 2003. He is the founding Chair of the Southampton Heritage and Arts People (SHAPe) and is a Trustee of the Flat Time Institute in London. Stephen’s main interests are contemporary art and travelling which, fortunately, he has been able to combine.