I am an experienced researcher and critical writer on arts and culture, primarily art history and English literature, and I am keen to pursue new projects in these fields.

I am beginning to develop a specialism in artists’ and experimental films, notably unconventional documentaries and essay films. I am interested in researching and writing about such films, as well curating, programming and making them.

I would be keen to discuss any offers of employment or collaboration relating to the above subjects, for example:

• Writing essays for journals, magazines and exhibition catalogues
• Writing reviews of art, films, and books
• Interviewing artists and other arts and cultural professionals
• Curating or curatorial research
• Research in support of art projects
• Research for film/video production, particularly documentaries
• Editing texts in my specialist areas
• Teaching English for academic or professional purposes in any of these areas

 

Academic Specialisms

I am a doctor of history of art, with a PhD from the Open University, in which I was supported by the AHRC.  My thesis title was “British Neo-Constructivism between 1956 and 1978: Art and the Politics of Technoscientific Modernisation”.  To pick two highlights of the project which I would be keen to develop further, I was fascinated to learn about Denis Williams, a Guyanese artist and writer of African descent, who made a largely overlooked contribution to the famous 1956 exhibition “This is Tomorrow”; I considered the implications of this in the context of decolonisation.  I also particularly enjoyed learning about the Hayward Annual exhibition of 1978, which was noteworthy as an early national-level exhibition led by women, at the time of second wave feminism. I presented my PhD research at major conferences in London and Cambridge.

Towards the end of my PhD, I was employed by the British Council as a work-study fellow, based in the British pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

For my master’s degree I studied “Criticism and Culture” at the University of Cambridge, and I achieved a distinction-level mark.  I wrote extended essays on naturalism in some films by Ken Loach and Steve McQueen, and on the novel The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh.  The latter was for an inspiring course on “Afterlives of Empire” led by Dr Priyamvada Gopal.  My master’s thesis was on the Welsh cultural critic and novelist Raymond Williams.

As an undergraduate I studied English language and literature at the University of Oxford, and I got a first.

 

Publications

I wrote introductory essays for exhibition catalogues for the artists Robin Cornell and Tudor Titzoiu.  My writing has also been published in Mute magazine.