"Once you’ve curated new media art you’re unlikely to curate anything else the same way again."

Building on research into curating new media art since 1993 at the University of Sunderland, CRUMB was founded by Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook in 2000 within the School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, with a Small Grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Board. CRUMB's activities cover a range of practices, but are predominantly based around research, networking, and professional development for curators of new media art.

CRUMB members run a lively discussion list on curating new media art with 800 international subscribers, publish interviews with curators, and lecture and publish widely, contributing to academic books as well as artists' exhibition catalogues. Articles written by CRUMB team members on the subject of curating new media art are to be found in books published by Routledge, Arts Council of England, University of California Press and The Banff Centre Press and in periodicals such as Leonardo, Art Monthly and Mute Magazine. Cook and Graham have written a book on curating new media art, to be published by MIT Press.

CRUMB researchers also curate exhibitions as well as organising workshops, masterclasses and conferences for the professional development of curators and the discussion of new media art curating. These include organising the first ever meeting of new media curators in the UK as part of BALTIC's pre-opening programme - a seminar on Curating New Media held in May 2001.

Further dedicated research grants from AHRC and others have allowed CRUMB to expand its team of researchers to include web-programmer Spencer Roberts, post-doctoral researcher Dr. Verina Gfader, and doctoral researchers who combine academic, practical and professional expertise including Ele Carpenter (completed 2008), Dominic Smith and Adinda van 't Klooster (2007-2010). Full bios for all are below.

Since 2001, the CRUMB team have successfully realised projects through research partnerships with: BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, UK (2004-2006); The Banff Centre - the Walter Phillips Gallery and the Banff New Media Institute, Canada (2004-2007); The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2002); Caitlin Jones – Archivist and Curator (2008). Arts Council England funded visiting 'Inspiring Internationalist'.

Our current research partners are Eyebeam (New York) and The Institute for Cultural Research, Lancaster University (Dr. Charles Gere), to expand our international networks and initiate collaborations, and to place research in a context of contemporary curating debate across art-forms. A new post-doctoral curator, Dr. Axel Lapp has joined CRUMB on a year's fellowship from March 2009.