Job Title: Associate Director, Curatorial
Reports to: Chief Collections + Exhibitions Officer
Department: Curatorial
Supervises: Supervises 2-3 staff members
Work Schedule: 40 hours per week, 5 days per week, hybrid work eligible. This role requires some weekends and evenings to support MOPOP events.
Salary: $110,000 - $120,000
Position Summary
Reporting to the Chief Collections + Exhibitions Officer, the Associate Director, Curatorial provides day-to-day leadership of MOPOP’s Curatorial Department and plays a key role in developing and delivering the museum’s exhibition program. The position leads
major
exhibitions and institutional initiatives while overseeing curatorial staff, departmental workflows, interpretive quality, scholarship, and cross-functional collaboration.
Serving as both a senior working curator and departmental leader, the Associate Director balances direct exhibition ownership with people leadership, mentorship, long-range planning, and stewardship of consistent curatorial and interpretive standards across MOPOP’s exhibition portfolio. Working within the strategic direction
established
by the Chief Collections + Exhibitions Officer, this role ensures the Curatorial team has the clarity, resources, collaboration, and leadership necessary to successfully deliver the museum’s exhibition and storytelling priorities.
Essential Job Duties (other duties as assigned)
Exhibition Development
· Lead and support MOPOP exhibitions (on-site and traveling) from concept through post-opening operations
· Collaborate with Curatorial, Exhibition Design + Planning, Collections, Exhibition Fabrication, , Video, Marketing, Advancement, Facilities, and other teams throughout exhibition development processes
· Lead or contribute to interpretive framing and storytelling, aesthetic direction, graphic approach, exhibition layout, interactive strategy, and media integration
· Develop exhibition content across various mediums including themes, concept materials, presentations, didactic text, digital interpretation, media narratives, and visitor-facing experiences within exhibition spaces and digital platforms
· Manage or contribute to exhibition-related budgeting, vendor coordination, contract review, and traveling exhibition planning
· Support long-range exhibition planning and institutional curatorial initiatives in collaboration with the Chief Collections + Exhibitions Officer
· Collaborate with Curatorial, Collections, Exhibition Design + Planning, and Exhibition Fabrication teams on the exhibition calendar, including long-term exhibition rotations, gallery refreshes, annual initiatives, and artifact swap planning
· Support exhibition installation, deinstallation, gallery continuity, and post-opening stewardship efforts as needed
· Conduct oral history interviews and support institutional storytelling initiatives related to exhibitions and collections
Department Leadership
· Provide day-to-day leadership and management of the Curatorial Department, translating institutional and exhibition priorities into clear departmental goals, workplans, and expectations.
· Directly supervise Curators and additional Curatorial staff, including coaching, performance management, goal setting, mentorship, workload management, and professional development.
· Oversee allocation of curatorial assignments and exhibition leadership opportunities, balancing organizational priorities, staff capacity, development opportunities, and equitable distribution of work.
· Establish and maintain effective departmental workflows, communication practices, documentation, and knowledge sharing.
· Ensure consistent standards for curatorial scholarship, interpretive quality, accessibility, storytelling, and visitor experience across the exhibition portfolio.
· Foster an inclusive, accountable, collaborative, and intellectually rigorous departmental culture.
· Partner with the Chief Collections + Exhibitions Officer on departmental planning, staffing, resource needs, and long-range curatorial priorities.
· Represent Curatorial in cross-functional planning and strengthen partnerships with Curatorial, Exhibition Design + Planning, Collections, Exhibition Fabrication, , Video, Marketing, Advancement, Facilities, and other teams.
· Cultivate and maintain relationships with artists, scholars, lenders, donors, community partners, and peer institutions in support of exhibitions and institutional priorities
MOPOP Community
- Support our internal culture which inspires and empowers our staff to live our mission to its highest standards.
- Contribute to a consistent customer service standard across all departments.
Work to ensure customer service is ingrained at the core of the team and is reflected outward to our guests and other staff.
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Preferred/Desired Qualifications
· Minimum 8 (eight) years of curatorial or exhibition development experience in a museum or related cultural institution
· Demonstrated experience leading large-scale exhibitions and managing complex exhibition initiatives
· Minimum of three (3) years of managerial experience
· Strong knowledge of exhibition development, interpretive planning, collections stewardship, media integration and museum standards
· Excellent organizational, communication, writing, presentation, leadership, and collaboration skills
· Experience with traveling exhibitions, donor engagement, budgeting, grants, contracts, and institutional partnerships preferred
· Familiarity with collections management systems, exhibition software, and digital interpretation platforms preferred
· Commitment to anti-racism work and DEIA-centered curatorial practice
· Broad knowledge of popular culture, including music, film, fashion, gaming, fandom, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and social movements
Benefits
This full-time position includes Medical/Vision insurance, Dental insurance, 3.08 hours of accrued Vacation per bi-weekly pay period, Seattle Sick/Safe, up to 8 Company Holidays paid throughout the year, EAP, 401k plan with vested match schedule once eligible, and subsidized transportation benefits for Orca Pass or parking.
Why MOPOP?
We’re really glad you’re thinking about joining the team at MOPOP! We believe pop culture is a universal language capable of building connections across a range of people, no matter our differences in race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, ability, education, socio-economic status, ethnicity, country of origin, or any other characteristic that makes us who we are. For more than twenty years, we have been showcasing how music, film, fashion, video games, sports, and more spark those connections and create a lasting cultural impact.
MOPOP provides both a physical space and an emotional and intellectual opportunity for people from any background to explore, find and build community, and recognize their own creative potential. This applies not only to our guests, but also to our staff — be it in designing an educational program to engage the next generation of creators, trying to reach a new audience with a marketing initiative, preserving an artifact in our collection, or providing excellent customer service to a visitor. If this sounds like something you’d be into, we’d love to hear from you!
MOPOP’s Mission and Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
Our mission is to activate the world-shaping power of pop culture through participative experiences, discovery, and play. We believe pop culture connects us, and that it is powerful, complex, alive and who we are. MOPOP is actively committed to ongoing learning in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). In partnership with our community, we hope to also develop safe spaces for their application. This includes taking steps to continue increasing our awareness of institutional “-isms,” as well as uncovering and undoing the ways they show up in museum culture. We recognize this is a process that requires intentionality, energy, and resources, and we are developing a DEIA framework that can cultivate a work environment and museum experience that is truly welcoming for all.
We are committed to creating an inclusive and equitable workplace, and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We believe that having staff, interns, and volunteers with diverse backgrounds enables us to better meet our mission and encourage BIPOC, women, and LGBTQIA2S+ individuals to apply. We acknowledge that our work to build safe spaces and better systems for traditionally marginalized groups is ongoing and will require constant vigilance and expect all MOPOP employees to be part of our DEIA journey.
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Please email [email protected] if you need reasonable accommodations during the application or hiring process.
