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Sarah Searson is a curator and cultural strategist who has spent almost thirty years shaping the infrastructure, policy, and public life of the arts in Ireland. She has led organisations, written policy, commissioned public art, produced major festivals, and delivered cultural resources that continue to serve the sector today. Her career spans local authority, university, charity, and independent contexts. She moves fluently between strategic leadership, hands-on curatorial and creative practice.

Listen to Sarah speak about her career on the Wishing Well here.

Leadership Team Building & Communication: Directed organisations and teams across local authority, university, charity and independent contexts, with a focus on organisational enhancement,  transformation and innovation. Former roles include; Arts Officer Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, Head of the Centre for Creative Arts and Media, ATU,  Director of The Dock, Interim Director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Strategic Programme Lead IADT.

Governance: Extensive governance experience including boards, councils and academic bodies, with a strong record of budget management, funding and procurement. Roles include; Governing Body of IT Sligo, Governing Body of Maynooth University including its Quality Assurance Committee, Company Secretary to the Board of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, reporting to its Audit and Risk Committee, Chair the Local Authority Arts Officers Association of Ireland, Board member Rua Red, Pallas Studios, Galway Arts Centre, Leitrim Design House, Leitrim County Councils Strategic Policy Community.

Advocacy & Stakeholder Relations: Experienced in building sustained productive relationships between artists, communities, funders, and public bodies, and by mediating policy through practice for wider public audiences; Grangegorman Development Agency arts strategy through consultation engaging the HSE, TU Dublin, Dublin City Council, and local and city-wide arts organisations. Galway City Arts Strategy over a year of public consultation, Mediation Commissioned for South Dublin County Council's In Context 3 public art programme.

Public Engagement: An active commitment to connecting artists, organisations and audiences through digital resources and communication, major festivals, annual public programming, broadcast/podcast work, and the mediation of artworks and projects for communities encountering them. Examples include; Arts and Health.ie, the national online resource for arts and health practice developed by Waterford Healing Arts Trust and Create. Publicart.ie Ireland's first national public art resource, commissioned by the Arts Council and the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport, combining a project directory, artist interviews, commissioned writing and an archive of opportunities and news.

Curatorial CV Linked Here

Full Cv available on request