A Curator Comes Home: Helen Nisbet Returns to Scotland to Lead Glasgow’s Biennial

July 9, 2025 / Sophie Clearwater /

Helen Nisbet succeeds Richard Birkett as the biennial’s director. Photo: Christa Holka

Glasgow International, Scotland’s biennial festival of contemporary art, announced early last month that Helen Nisbet will serve as its next director. The Shetland-born curator returns to Scotland from London, where she served as artistic director of the Art Night contemporary art festival and the chief executive of Cromwell Place gallery hub. She takes over from Richard Birkett, who stepped down in February, and Observer caught up with her to hear about her plans for the beloved biennial.

Congratulations on the new gig! Your official statement had you “excited to work with, and learn from, the festival team and to be amongst the gorgeous light, energy, artists, communities (and even the rain) in Glasgow again.” What makes the city of Glasgow unique, apart from the rain?
This is a hard one to answer, so I asked ChatGPT. It said that the people are warm, witty and ‘real’, that the city boasts Victorian grandeur, brutalist relics (much of the props here should go to the iconic architecture practice Gillespie Kidd & Coia) and bold contemporary design. It talks about music and the legendary scene (Belle and Sebastian definitely drew me to the city as a student, alongside the dearly departed Scottish Socialist Party), the “industrial roots” and “creative present”—the industry and artistry, the green spaces, the local language, pride in diversity, football obsession and defiant individuality. Sadly, it does not mention Limmy.

Are there any past editions of the Glasgow International that are particularly inspirational to you?
I loved the last festival, which took place in 2024. I didn’t come for the opening and so spent a gorgeous couple of days quietly seeing things on my own and with friends. I cried in Kinning Park at Alexis Kyle Mitchell’s film The Treasury of Human Inheritance. I enjoyed the energy of 5 Florence Street, now home to The Common Guild (whose brilliant director Katrina Brown led Glasgow International for the 2010 and 2012 festivals) and a series of studios and creative businesses, which housed work by artists Sandra George, Josie KO and Kialy Tihngang, Bobbi Cameron, Owain Train McGilvery and Wei Zhang. I loved Kim Bohie’s paintings at The Modern Institute, and I had a beautiful moment at the gorgeous, calm and sunny Radclyffe Hall, where I bumped into a group of excellent people and got to bathe in the glory of Jamie Crewe’s exhibition Defixiones.

A black-and-white photograph of a large seated audience inside a Gothic cathedral with vaulted ceilings and tall stained-glass windows, likely attending a concert or performance. — Cento presented a site-specific performance by composer and sound artist Kali Malone for Glasgow International 2024. Image courtesy Kali Malone and Cento. Photo: Patrick Jameson

You’re replacing Richard Birkett, who presented what The Art Newspaper’s Louisa Buck called “the strongest and punchiest editions in recent years.” How would you contrast your curatorial style with his? Are you punchy?
Richard Birkett is incredible. I currently have the pleasure of spending more time with him in this transition moment and am indebted to him, his generosity and the clever, thoughtful work he’s done over the past few years.

We live in an age of too many art fairs and biennials. How do you make the case that Glasgow is a necessary stop on that circuit?
I don’t think there are too many biennials! And Glasgow is one of the best cities in the world. Freedom of imagination, creativity, humour, political resistance and solidarity are central to its history and to the ways artists make work in the city today. Glasgow has an addictive energy, and Glasgow International is a very necessary stop (or stay, if you live there).

An interior view of an art gallery with exposed brick walls showing a diptych featuring white line drawings and a bright blue caterpillar-like figure, with a vitrine displaying open art books and magazines in the foreground. — Keith Haring’s “Subway Drawings” were shown at The Modern Institute’s Bricks Space in Glasgow as part of Glasgow International 2024. Photo: eoin carey

Your first edition, the eleventh Glasgow International, is set to take place next year. What is your schedule like now? Are you feverishly touring artists’ studios?
I’m still in the process of finishing things off in London and having studio visits and meetings down here before I do. I am moving back to Glasgow later in the summer, and in the meantime, I’m very lucky that the festival team is so great. I’m really looking forward to spending time with, reconnecting with and meeting with folk in Glasgow again.

What do you think you’re going to be looking for in artist collaborators? What makes a Glasgow International artist?
Someone who makes brilliant work, regardless of what stage in their career they are at.

Where is your favorite place to eat in Glasgow?
When I was a student, it was chips and cheese at Mr Chips on Sauchiehall Street (RIP). In my twenties, my friends and I were obsessed with (and still are) Mother India’s Cafe and never deviated from a very specific order, which I can still reel off. Now it is Gloriosa, but I’m also looking forward to finding new places I don’t know about yet—my friend Nabihah Iqbal has been telling anyone who will listen about the pastries at Outlier, and I think they’ve recently started doing dinners, too.