5 Quick Questions with Autograph's Senior Curator, Bindi Vora

As we prepare to install the upcoming exhibition at Autograph, no two days are ever the same. I usually start the morning with a quiet half hour at my desk scanning emails for urgent updates – perhaps a courier confirming an artwork shipment or a long-awaited reply from an artist. It is a small but grounding ritual that sets the tone for the day. From there things pick up quickly. Working closely with Greta, Autograph’s Exhibitions Manager, our morning check-ins focus on problem-solving together to make sure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes.

On busy days the building feels alive with activity. For our forthcoming exhibition featuring 13 artists we are beginning to receive artworks, unpacking crates with care and anticipation. At the same time, I might be reviewing proofs for the exhibition graphics, signing off on designs and wall text that will soon transform blank walls into a cohesive visual experience for visitors.

By the afternoon the pace often shifts. If I am working from the gallery, I take time to walk through the space, imagining how visitors will encounter the exhibition. Even amid the immediate tasks my focus is never only on the present. We are always looking ahead; reviewing works for the next exhibition, visiting exhibitions, drafting contracts and attending team meetings where we share programme ideas.

I distinctly remember a school trip to the National Portrait Gallery where I encountered an exhibition by the photographer Annie Leibovitz. I was captivated by how the show told the story of her practice, not just through individual images but through a sequence that wove together her tender personal portraits with glimpses into the elaborate research behind her shoots. It conveyed the texture of her magazine work in its entirety without sanitising it as well as the narrative power of exhibition-making. What struck me most was not only the art itself but the act of storytelling – how an exhibition shapes the way we experience and feel about a work when standing before it. That moment sparked a lasting curiosity about how art (specifically photography) can come together and the kinds of physical and emotional responses it can provoke.

My curatorial career really began in the early 2010s at The Photographers’ Gallery, where I worked for five years in various roles – first as a Press and Marketing intern, then as PA to the Director and later within the external programme on a project-by-project basis. One of the most significant projects I helped develop was Work, Rest and Play: British Photography from the 1960s to Today which was – shown across four venues in China. It was a formative experience, – one that showed me the scale and responsibility of curating while deepening my sense of how collaborative and research-driven the process must be.

From there I joined the Hayward Gallery as Curatorial Assistant, where I was assigned to work on a major exhibition with pioneering South Korean artist Lee Bul. Having come predominantly from a photographic background, it was an opportunity to think differently about how other mediums can intersect with a space and transform it. Working closely with the artist and curator Stephanie Rosenthal, each gallery became a spectacular landscape filled with monstrous bodies, futuristic cyborgs, glittering mirrored environments and a surreal monumental foil Zeppelin.

Over the last 7 years I have had the pleasure and privilege of working on an array of exhibitions, artist commissions, community projects and publications. One of which has been Mónica Alcázar-Duarte’s first UK solo exhibition Digital Clouds Don’t Carry Rain (2022) – a powerful exploration of indigenous knowledge, colonial legacies and ecological urgency. The exhibition grew from a long-term dialogue with Alcázar-Duarte, following her practice since her graduation in 2014 and evolving into her 2022 LightWork x Autograph residency. At the heart of the exhibition was Embers, an installation of 56 3D-printed lilies co-commissioned with the Hasselblad Foundation. Each lily was generated through an algorithm inspired by bee colonies and brought to life with augmented reality. This sustained exchange not only affirmed ancestral knowledge but also marked one of Autograph’s first deep engagements with emerging technologies.

To accompany Ajamu’s exhibition, The Patron Saint of Darkrooms (2023), we published an artist newspaper featuring his photographs alongside the debut of a commission responding to the legacy of Black queer photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode. For me, it was an incisive journey – commissioning essays, navigating editorial decisions and overseeing the production process. With publishing at the core of the organisation’s DNA, the project reaffirmed how print can extend the life of an exhibition and create a vital space for new voices to enter the dialogue.

We are currently working towards the realisation of I Still Dream of Lost Vocabularies, a group exhibition exploring political dissent and erasure through the idea of collage. The project has been in development for over two years and will feature work by 13 artists. Many of us wear multiple hats whilst working in the arts – for me, I am an artist too. Within my artistic practice I often return to combinations of collage, language and processes that consider how materials can be reused and recycled to create new narratives. This exhibition is the culmination of meticulous research into the medium of collage as a contemporary practice and to consider the use of the photographic image in tandem with painting, tapestry and digitally created works.