Cas Bradbeer (they/them) is a curator, researcher and activist, studying on the History of Design MA programme run jointly by the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Their current research focuses on historical representations of gender non-conformity, especially in London theatres. Their essay topics have included research on the V&A's collections relating to Moll Cutpurse (the seventeenth-century gender non-conforming thief and performer) and George Beauchamp (the nineteenth-century pantomime Dame). They are now looking to find employment in the museums and galleries sector after they finish their MA this Summer.
Last year they graduated from the Courtauld Institute of Art’s History of Art BA. Their research here included a reappraisal of the trans resonance of an ancient Mesopotamian deity featured in a sculpture called The Burney Relief that is now kept in the British Museum. Their dissertation was on queer exhibitions produced by a Vietnamese artist-curator called Nhung Đinh, and they will be presenting this research at the Association for Art History's annual conference in Spring 2023. They also worked with Nhung when she was one of the featured artists of a queer ecology group exhibition that Cas curated at IMT Gallery in Summer 2022, They/Them/Their: Naturally Not Binary (this is the show in which they are pictured in the image on this webpage). While they were at the Courtauld, they also curated a couple of exhibitions at Ugly Duck (such as Crafting Ourselves, Winter 2022) and several at the arts and community centre Grand Junction (such as Building Grand Junction, Autumn 2020). In terms of their queer art historical research, they delivered talks at venues such as the National Gallery of Ireland and the National Maritime Museum.
They are now running the RCA’s Queer Society, producing a range of events such as talks with guest speakers like Professor Richard Sandell, as well as creative queer history workshops that Cas runs on areas like craftivism. Additionally, they are producing an exhibition of intersectional feminist commodities, co-curated with three of their fellow History of Design MA students. They have also been working on some queer projects for the V&A, such as assisting with symposiums, cataloguing trans objects in the collection, and curating a set of performances in the galleries by three non-binary drag performers. They are now developing their own LGBTQIA+ tour for the V&A, and will be delivering it monthly, hopefully continuing after graduating their MA there. Beyond the RCA and V&A, they have recently been co-curating queer art showcases with the likes of the William Morris Society, presenting talks at the likes of Queer Britain, and doing consultations for queer art projects at the likes of Tate Modern, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Museum of London.
