Biography

Anna Cutler is currently Director of Learning at Tate, having been appointed in 2011 as Tate’s first Director of Learning taking strategic responsibility across all of Tate sites. Her aim has been to stimulate new kinds of visitor experience and a more open, participative and creative learning environment. Over 30 years Anna has worked across national and international cultural and educational settings. She began work as a playwright and theatre director, then as an academic and producer. Her work has ranged from being Director of an international Children’s Festival in Belfast to setting up a Resource Centre for Dance at the Place Theatre in London. Her interest in learning has been the motivation of all she has undertaken and it is the purpose, exploration and improvement of learning projects and programmes within cultural practice that she continues to test and trial. She was previously Creative Director, Creative Partnerships Kent, for four years before joining Tate as Head of Learning at Tate Modern. She is currently developing a new programme to examine the contribution made by the visual arts to society’s wider cultural and economic landscape. This explores some of the bigger questions and themes of our age, from production to social relations, recognising that the museum is increasingly not simply a place for observation, instruction and experience, but also one for personal development, contribution and exchange. Cutler has published numerous articles and texts and sits on a range of boards involved in international art and learning networks. She has written widely on education in the expanded field of art.