Guest Lecturer: Denise Courcoux

Graduating in 2005 with a BA Fine Art with English Literature, Chester University graduate Denise Courcoux now works as an assistant exhibition registrar for Tate Liverpool.

Through the Careers service at Chester, Denise got her first ‘proper’ job as an Information Assistant at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Liverpool Bluecoat. Part of her job in this location, was to deal with the public, protecting the artwork and talking to visitors about it.

After a year of working as an Information Assistant, she got promoted as a Gallery Coordinator. In this position, she worked with artists and partners in organising exhibitions, she helped book with contractors, project management, amongst several other tasks.

Whilst working at Bluecoat, seven years after she finished her degree in Chester, Denise decided to return to university to continue her postgraduate studies and start her masters. She felt as if a master’s degree would help her level up in her career and she had also missing studying and learning.

After her degree, she went on to working as a Museum Manager in smaller and more independent museums. She explained that the pacing in smaller teams for independent museums is a completely different and more hectic experience than working in a museum as big as Tate Liverpool where she currently works in, which she felt like it was very valuable and good experience.

Some of the advice Denise gave was to take time on job applications, the industry is a very competitive place so doing research and finding out more about the company and what their future plans are and mentioning the research you have done in the application can be incredibly valuable.

Denise also mentioned that every single job you get is valuable, regardless of whether or not they are exactly what you see yourself doing in the future. There are a lot of transferable skills in any job and it is okay to have a job that is not in the area of arts.

She also advised to continue working on your art and to continue practicing regardless of it being for a job or just as a hobby.

I found it incredibly helpful to hear this, as one of my fears after leaving university, is not being able to find a job in the area that I want. It is reassuring to hear someone with experience talk about how they too struggled with this and initially did have jobs that did not relate to their degree.