Introducing the Coop's New Director, Tom Day

The Film-Makers’ Cooperative Board of Directors is pleased to announce the organization’s new Executive Director, Tom Day.  

“I am beyond delighted to be coming onboard as Executive Director of The Film Makers’ Coop,” Day says. “This is an exciting time for the institution, and I cannot  wait to begin helping The Coop start the next chapter of its storied history as a  cornerstone of experimental film culture in New York and around the globe. In  collaboration with the Board of Directors, I will endeavor to continue, and expand  upon, The Coop’s dynamic program of screenings and workshops; engage a diverse  group of artists, filmmakers and audiences; and grow and care for The Coop’s  collections.” 

Tom joins The Coop from the academic sector, having spent the last six years  teaching and researching in the fields of art history and film studies at The  University of Edinburgh and The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.  While at The Courtauld, Tom helped to run The Centre for American Art, a field leading scholarly center, where he programmed lectures, symposia, workshops,  screenings, and artists’ events. 

Tom completed a PhD in 2019 at The University of Edinburgh with a dissertation on  the relationship between Pop art and experimental film since the 1950s. Parts of  this work have been revised and are to be published by Edinburgh University Press  in a forthcoming anthology Tom has edited with Glyn Davis entitled Pop Cinema. He  is also expanding a further part of this research into a book provisionally titled TV  Generation: Art and the Political Imaginary of Television on the Lower East Side. 

Tom has several other in-print and forthcoming publications on experimental film,  television and the history New York’s avant-garde Downtown scene of the 1960– 1990s. This work has profoundly informed Tom’s teaching, which he will continue in  New York using The Coop’s collections as a key resource. 

As part of Tom’s strategic plan for The Coop, he will aim to revive the scholar-in residence program to encourage and support academic research into the collection.  Tom will also seek to implement focused education and programming initiatives  with the ultimate aim of funding a teaching fellowship and a set of curatorial  fellowships at The Coop that will support pedagogical programmes and a roster of  screenings and publications. An expansion of community-oriented workshops for  artists and filmmakers will also be a key priority. One of the central ambitions of  Tom’s tenure will be to further assist The Coop in the preservation, digitization, and  storage of its world-leading collection of experimental film and video artworks  through a rigorous grant-getting program, as well as through collaborations with  institutional partners within and beyond New York City.