ANNIE FLETCHER

Director, IMMA

“I feel a great responsibility in my role to support women artists. That’s been one of my priorities over the years. IMMA has always had quite a progressive perspective in relation to women. Right from the beginning, they were collecting a lot of work by women artists, and showcasing women’s practices as much as men’s. It’s vital for the museum to be more inclusive and even less binary, and think of ourselves as a kind of social power plant for all kinds of communities. Museums since they were invented collect and, if you like, brand what is culturally important through their collections. So once you start collecting, you’re immediately starting to exclude as well as include. It’s an exciting thing to think about: What have we been thinking is worthy of collecting and what have we been thinking isn’t? And the great thing about a museum is, it can make those processes super-visible and dare to talk about them.”