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Biography
Following his residency as an artist at The Human Genome Mapping Project (1998), and a team BAFTA whilst Creative Director of artist-led collective Soda in 2001, Neal White’s early artwork (2001-10) developed his research-led approach through an array of projects exploring anomalous subjects. From an exploration of the historical anatomy of time, and the book form, in ‘Otts Sneeze’ - (New Writing Commission with author Lawrence Norfolk, published by Bookworks, 2002), through to a campaign to restore the destroyed public sculptures of Jacob Epstein in London, in The Third Campaign (Commission for The Henry Moore Institute, 2004), to testing the ethical limits of scientific self-experimentation (The Void, Barbican Gallery and various locations, 2005), his work explored subjects that connected moral and ethical positions on aesthetics with questions of how and where knowledge as power is accumulated and accessed.
Expanding into a collaborative approach, he was commisioned by Arts Catalyst to work on a proposal to build a full scale Space Station at Camden Roundhouse with the group N55 (2004-6) - an early experiment at the intersection of art and environmental politics. The project in turn led to him found the para-instituton; Office of Experiments, which later archived the laboratory landscapes of the UK as shaped by post-industrial / techno-scientific complex. As a methodological innovation, White formed the Overt Research Project (with Steve Rowell / Lisa Haskel), that led to The Mike Kenner Archive (Dark Places at John Hansard Gallery, 2008/9) with Office of Experiments, that laid out the role of secrecy and where science happens, in contemporary debates around access to knowledge in the techno/scientific complex. The project emerged from a three year period of research by White working in desert locations of Utah with influential marginal institution, the ‘undisciplined’ US based Center for Land Use Interpretation (as funded by The Henry Moore Foundation- see Museum of the Void, Chelsea Space, 2010).
Neal White also shifted his thinking about the artist role in society in this period, after engaging with John Latham and Barbara Steveni, the founders of APG (Artist Placement Group). Their ideas of the artists place in society, as well as conceptual work on temporality, organisational aesthetics and the incidental, led White to reshape his research as an autonomous approach, independent from, but connected to academic methods and researchers inside knowledge led institutions - an incidental practice. After becoming a Director of O+I in 2007 (APG succeessor - 1989-2009) , White exhibited new work that embodied this approach with Office of Experiments in The Incidental Person at Apexart in NYC (The Redactor - see Print, 2010). He was asked to present aspects of his research-led practice in a two-handed exhibition with John Latham at Portikus (God is Great 10-19) in Frankfurt (2014).
His retrospective a year later, “Sites of Extraction and Construction’ at Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp, in 2015, captured aspects of his anomalous investigations (Curated by Antony Hudek) and in 2016, led to work with Tina O’Connell on the exhibition 9Events at Royal College of Art, of which one event - ‘An Incidental Meeting’ organised with Barbara Steveni led to the establishment of the Incidental Unit, now recognised as the successor to APG.
From 2010, Neal White’s work on many projects has been with his partner and long-time collaborator, Tina O’Connell. From exploring data landscapes to curent work on anthropogenic noise – that is the impact of human pollution and environmental justice on artistic forms of engagement, these projects bring together their entangled and shared interests and positions on art, sculpture, visual studies as well as socially engaged practices from a UK / Irish perspective.
In 2016, Neal White was appointed as an Interdisciplinary Professor of Art at University of Westminster and since 2017 he has co-led the high profile research centre, CREAM. In this role, he is now also engaged supporting colleagues, as well as teaching on the new MA in Global Contemporary Art, whilst coordinating / organising larger scale projects. He supervise PhD’s and coordinated The Deep Field Project (formerly with Diann Bauer and Jol Thoms, 2022). He has also been developing ecological projects, from solo commissions (such as Tiny Love Songs - All our futures are scalable), to data driven climate installation work with Office of Experiments / Monsoon Assemblages (at Venice Biennale of Architecture, 2021), to co-curation of the Soil Assembly at the Kochi Muzaris Biennale (2023) and more recently working closely with Westminster colleague Radha D’Souza to help realise the London edition of the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes, conceived by Jonas Staal with Radha, and exhibited with Serpentine Gallery at CREAMS exhibition space; Ambika P3, London (2025). He continues to works with Ecological Futurisms exploring these areas in reation to global contemporary art practices.
Neal White is currently a member of the Board of Trustees for SPACE Studios, London. Selected works are in the collection of The Henry Moore Institute and Leeds Gallery Sculpture Collection.
Biography
Following his residency as an artist at The Human Genome Mapping Project (1998), and a team BAFTA whilst Creative Director of artist-led collective Soda in 2001, Neal White’s early artwork (2001-10) developed his research-led approach through an array of projects exploring anomalous subjects. From an exploration of the historical anatomy of time, and the book form, in ‘Otts Sneeze’ - (New Writing Commission with author Lawrence Norfolk, published by Bookworks, 2002), through to a campaign to restore the destroyed public sculptures of Jacob Epstein in London, in The Third Campaign (Commission for The Henry Moore Institute, 2004), to testing the ethical limits of scientific self-experimentation (The Void, Barbican Gallery and various locations, 2005), his work explored subjects that connected moral and ethical positions on aesthetics with questions of how and where knowledge as power is accumulated and accessed.
Expanding into a collaborative approach, he was commisioned by Arts Catalyst to work on a proposal to build a full scale Space Station at Camden Roundhouse with the group N55 (2004-6) - an early experiment at the intersection of art and environmental politics. The project in turn led to him found the para-instituton; Office of Experiments, which later archived the laboratory landscapes of the UK as shaped by post-industrial / techno-scientific complex. As a methodological innovation, White formed the Overt Research Project (with Steve Rowell / Lisa Haskel), that led to The Mike Kenner Archive (Dark Places at John Hansard Gallery, 2008/9) with Office of Experiments, that laid out the role of secrecy and where science happens, in contemporary debates around access to knowledge in the techno/scientific complex. The project emerged from a three year period of research by White working in desert locations of Utah with influential marginal institution, the ‘undisciplined’ US based Center for Land Use Interpretation (as funded by The Henry Moore Foundation- see Museum of the Void, Chelsea Space, 2010).
Neal White also shifted his thinking about the artist role in society in this period, after engaging with John Latham and Barbara Steveni, the founders of APG (Artist Placement Group). Their ideas of the artists place in society, as well as conceptual work on temporality, organisational aesthetics and the incidental, led White to reshape his research as an autonomous approach, independent from, but connected to academic methods and researchers inside knowledge led institutions - an incidental practice. After becoming a Director of O+I in 2007 (APG succeessor - 1989-2009) , White exhibited new work that embodied this approach with Office of Experiments in The Incidental Person at Apexart in NYC (The Redactor - see Print, 2010). He was asked to present aspects of his research-led practice in a two-handed exhibition with John Latham at Portikus (God is Great 10-19) in Frankfurt (2014).
His retrospective a year later, “Sites of Extraction and Construction’ at Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp, in 2015, captured aspects of his anomalous investigations (Curated by Antony Hudek) and in 2016, led to work with Tina O’Connell on the exhibition 9Events at Royal College of Art, of which one event - ‘An Incidental Meeting’ organised with Barbara Steveni led to the establishment of the Incidental Unit, now recognised as the successor to APG.
From 2010, Neal White’s work on many projects has been with his partner and long-time collaborator, Tina O’Connell. From exploring data landscapes to curent work on anthropogenic noise – that is the impact of human pollution and environmental justice on artistic forms of engagement, these projects bring together their entangled and shared interests and positions on art, sculpture, visual studies as well as socially engaged practices from a UK / Irish perspective.
In 2016, Neal White was appointed as an Interdisciplinary Professor of Art at University of Westminster and since 2017 he has co-led the high profile research centre, CREAM. In this role, he is now also engaged supporting colleagues, as well as teaching on the new MA in Global Contemporary Art, whilst coordinating / organising larger scale projects. He supervise PhD’s and coordinated The Deep Field Project (formerly with Diann Bauer and Jol Thoms, 2022). He has also been developing ecological projects, from solo commissions (such as Tiny Love Songs - All our futures are scalable), to data driven climate installation work with Office of Experiments / Monsoon Assemblages (at Venice Biennale of Architecture, 2021), to co-curation of the Soil Assembly at the Kochi Muzaris Biennale (2023) and more recently working closely with Westminster colleague Radha D’Souza to help realise the London edition of the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes, conceived by Jonas Staal with Radha, and exhibited with Serpentine Gallery at CREAMS exhibition space; Ambika P3, London (2025). He continues to works with Ecological Futurisms exploring these areas in reation to global contemporary art practices.
Neal White is currently a member of the Board of Trustees for SPACE Studios, London. Selected works are in the collection of The Henry Moore Institute and Leeds Gallery Sculpture Collection.