In 1989, he left academic life and joined the New Statesman and Society, as deputy editor, while remaining consultant to the BBC, working on series on subjects ranging from political reform to contemporary art.
In 1996 he was one of the two curators of Spellbound: Art and Film at the Hayward Gallery, London where the artists included Eduardo Paolozzi, Ridley Scott, Douglas Gordon, Steve McQuinn, Paula Rego and Peter Greenaway.
[5] Dodd introduced many innovations, including a writer-in-residence programme, which included Zadie Smith, a scientist-in-residence programme (the first time in Britain that a major arts organisation had appointed a scientist as creator), the Beck's Futures prize[4] and the Cultural Entrepreneurs Club, a networking agency that supported 500 of London's young creative businesses.
[7] With events such as the Chinese season as well as a one devoted to contemporary India, Dodd moved the ICA from a white world into a global one.
Artists who exhibited there under Dodd's directorship ranged from Yoko Ono to Philippe Parreno, from Urs Fischer to Steve McQueen who had his first one-person show at the ICA.
Dodd moved the ICA beyond the building and persuaded the Pet Shop Boys and the actor Simon McBurney to take over Trafalgar Square.
In the early days of Made in China, Dodd was also strategist to Art HK,[13] the largest artfair in Asia, and was advisor to the Chaoyang District government of Beijing[6] and creative consultant to the UK Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.
A retrospective of Hsiao Chin, the Shanghai artist who worked in Italy with Fontana and others, will be staged at the Mark Rothko Art Centre, Daugavpils, Latvia in June 2020.
These ranged from the Long Museum in Shanghai to the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, from OHD in Indonesia to Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Italy.
Dodd worked with Demos under the leadership of Geoff Mulgan and the pamphlet that he produced, The Battle Over Britain!, helped to shape the New Labour government's Cool Britannia rebranding of the UK.
He is a Sony award-winning broadcaster and a regular presenter of the BBC Radio 3 arts and ideas programme Free Thinking (formerly Night Waves).