Dr Chelsea Nichols is the Senior Curator of The Dowse Art Museum. With a penchant for the strange, dark corners of art history and internet culture, recent exhibitions include Steamed Hams (2023), The Truth Is Out There (2022) and Candy Coated (2021). Previously, she was Curator of Modern Art at the Museum of ew Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, where major projects included Tony Fomison: Lost in the Dark (2018). Nichols completed a DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2014, examining histories of monstrous bodies in art and exhibition culture. Since then, she has published widely on curious and overlooked aspects of both New Zealand and international art history, including the 2023 book Magic Wands Golden Skulls on The Dowse collection. She is also the creator of The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things, a long-running digital cabinet of curiosities exploring strange, uncanny and macabre relics of art and history.
