B.A. (Honors) TSM English Literature/French: Trinity College, Dublin

Chloë Sayer is an independent scholar and curator, specializing in Mexican art and culture. Based in London, she is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain. She lectures extensively, leads cultural tours to Mexico, and has made ethnographic collections in Mexico and Belize for the British Museum.

In 1991 she co-curated the exhibition The Skeleton at the Feast: The Day of the Dead in Mexico at the Museum of Mankind in London. She has curated Mexican exhibitions at The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1977), The Horniman Museum, London (1977-78), Trinity College, Dublin (1998), The University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield (1999), and Queen’s University, Belfast (2004). In 2007 she curated a travelling Mexican exhibition for Lancashire County Museum Services, and in 2008 she collaborated with curator Diane Wolfe on Harvest of Memories: Mexican Days of the Dead at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. She has coordinated residencies by Mexican artists at numerous venues including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Ideal Home Show in London, the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, and the British Museum.

In 2010 and 2014, as the Veronika Gervers Research Fellow in Textiles and Costume History, Chloë Sayer studied the ROM's extensive collection of Mexican textiles. Working with Dr. Alexandra Palmer (the Nora E. Vaughan Senior Curator of Textiles and Costume), she is guest-curator of the exhibition ¡Viva México! Clothing & Culture (May 2015-May 2016).

Chloë Sayer has also worked on numerous television documentaries. These include Of Gods and Men, a six-part series about Mexican civilizations (1979, BBC); Guitarra, an eight-part series about the history of the guitar with Julian Bream (1984, Channel 4); Lucha Libre: Tales of Wrestling, Politics and Religion (1990, Channel 4); Full Circle (filmed in 1996 with Michael Palin for the BBC), and Children of the Sun (filmed with the Huichol in 1997 for World of Geo/Sky TV).

Sayer uses her extensive photographic archive to illustrate her books, exhibitions and lectures. From 1992 to 2000, she was a visiting tutor in the Department of Cultural Studies at Central Saint Martins (now part of the University of the Arts, London). In 2002-03 she was a Gallery Educator at the Royal Academy during the exhibition Aztecs. She currently lectures in the UK and Europe for NADFAS (National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies); U3A (University of the Third Age); the Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers; and the Embroiderers’ Guild. She has also lectured in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Mexico.

Veronika Gervers Research Fellowship participant
Fellowship Years: 2010, 2013