Ben Thompson

Ben Thompson joined MOCA in March 2007. He is currently Deputy Director, Administration and Operations, but has served the museum in many capacities during his tenure. In his current role, he provides planning and strategic oversight of all matters relating to administrative and operational management of MOCA Jacksonville. Thompson holds an MFA in Sculpture from Massachusetts College of Art and a BFA from University of Louisiana, Lafayette. He has two decades of experience as an arts administrator in all aspect’s museum function, with much of his career focused in curatorial where he has extensive collections and exhibitions management experience. Prior to his arrival at MOCA, Thompson was Registrar at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans and the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University.

During his time as MOCA’s Curator, he was responsible for an ambitious collections and exhibitions program featuring approximately fifteen exhibitions yearly and focused on presenting innovative exhibitions by the finest international, national, and regional artists. He was responsible for the museums first major traveling and design exhibition The Art of Seating: 200 Years of Design, which circulated to nearly thirty venues across the country. In 2011, he organized MOCA’s second major traveling exhibition Shared Vision: The Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla Collection of Photography. The exhibition was accompanied by an Aperture Foundation publication, one of the world’s foremost publishers on photography. 

In addition to his museum work, Thompson is a working artist/blacksmith and is enthusiastic about the subject of metalwork in all forms. He is engaged in many community arts organizations and serves as the Northeast Florida Trustee of the Florida Artist Blacksmith Association (FABA).