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Bauplan, 2010, microfiche print - Dave Griffiths

Art and Performance
Research Hub

The Art and Performance Research Hub focuses on practice-based and theoretical research in Contemporary Art and Performance.

The Hub explores diverse models for creative practices, ranging from critical and historical writing to performance, sound archives, painting, sculpture (analogue and digital), time-based arts, curating, screen art (including screen dance/performance), performer training, dramaturgy, drawing, printing, and photography. Our work takes place in the public realm, locally and internationally, through exhibitions, seminars, conferences, screenings, events, performances, critical writing and publishing.

The Hub contributes to the overall research culture and expertise at Manchester School of Art through the local and international profiles of the staff. Our activities include:

  • Leadership of and contributions to the postgraduate research student environment through seminars, lectures, roundtables, research training and research supervision.
  • Professional practice research – working collectively and/or across disciplines within the wider Hub ecology.
  • Leadership in two internationally significant outward-facing groups across research and education with an international focus in Painting and Curating Contemporary Art.
  • Development and dissemination of internationally acclaimed digital media/performance.
  • Research and consultation in Socially Engaged art practices (historical and contemporary).
  • Professional relationships with local venues, such as curating festivals, and contributions to programmes and research projects, consultation to Contemporary Art Manchester Advisory Board (strategic partnership between City of Manchester and Arts Council England), and consultation on arts development and artist-led/informed policy.
  • Professional relationships with national and international venues/organisations (e.g. Reckless Sleepers, Odin Teatret / Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium, Cross Pollination etc.) including the curation of festivals (e.g. Flare, Asia Triennial Manchester etc.) contributing to programmes and collaborating on research projects.

We recognize and embrace the importance of individual practice as well as collaborative and inter/trans-disciplinary work. We actively promote the fact that art and performance is generated and developed in digital and analogue idioms across real and virtual sites, platforms and realities, working at and challenging the boundaries of the live and/or liveness, the proximal and online. We embrace new technologies and methodologies as well as cross-disciplinary collaborations with academic and non-academic partners in the UK and abroad whilst also providing specific expertise and knowledge in materials and processes outlined above, as well as 'out-dated' analogue media such as micro-fiches, slides, vinyl and film. In response to the pandemic, we have embraced new ways of making and disseminating work online.

Research Areas

Staff of the Art and Performance Hub embrace, interrogate and respond to contemporary issues from within a research environment that is clustered around rigorous intellectual research themes, including:

  • Archives, Museums, Cultural Heritage and Domestic Histories
  • Language, Power, Politics, Protest, Site and Communities
  • Somatics, Arts and Health, Social Practice, Policy, and Law
  • Simulation, Materiality, Identity, Fiction of the Image
  • Composition, Dramaturgy, Laboratory Training

Hub Projects

Bunker Talks

A space for critical encounters, presentations, provocation and dialogue, Bunker Talks are linked by a line of enquiry into geo-political, ecological or economic concerns. In the COVID-19 crisis, they have moved online to explore how artists, writers, curators and researchers continue to make and share their work. Curated by the Performance Research Cluster, talks include members of the Research Hub as well as professional practitioners and researchers. Talks from national and international speakers have been archived online as a repository mapping artists’ responses to the contemporary context.

More details

Painting Manchester

Painting Manchester was formed in 2018. It brings together excellence and world-leading research in contemporary painting and develops new activities at Manchester Met and the wider city to make a significant contribution to international debates and developments in discourse in the medium. It is comprised of senior academics within Manchester School of Art who employ a range of methodologies, whose outputs include publications, exhibitions, conferences, and symposia. Painting Manchester symposia have brought together leading international figures from the art world and academia to critically explore prescient ideas. These have included ‘Writing Painting/Painting Writing’ in 2018; ‘Funny Peculiar’ in 2019; and ‘Is Painting Research’ (forthcoming). Painting Manchester includes ‘Teaching Painting’ which was formed in 2015 to explore histories and recent developments of pedagogy in painting within higher arts education. It has convened conferences at the Whitworth, Manchester in 2015 and the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2018, edited two books on the subject, and curated a series of exhibitions that have explored the intergenerational influence of art school teaching.


The Curating Contemporary Art Group

The Curating Contemporary Art Group brings together world-leading research in experimental approaches to exhibition-making, exhibition histories, the philosophical, aesthetic, critical and theoretical foundations of curating and the practical realities of curating as cultural activism. The group works on activities that make a significant contribution to international debates and developments in discourse on the subject.

Members and Associate Members


Exhibitions & Publications

Exhibitions

Hunt, A., 2022. Behrang Karimi Rotpeter: 'Bild eines zur Dressur gezwungenen', Moon Grove, 20/5/2022 - 15/7/2022.

Biswas-Rodgers, S., 2022. Mixed Bathing World 2015 Triennial.

Warstat, A., Mock, J., 2022. S'attarder et regarder, ensemble et séparément - la photographie de Gavin Parry (Lingering and looking, together and apart - the photography of Gavin Parry), Maison Louis-Jardin du Mesnil-sur-Oger, Médiathèques Simone-Veil et Daniel-Rondeau d'Epernay, 17/9/2022 - 2/10/2022.

Ali, L., 2022. Tampered Surface Six Artists from Pakistan : an Exhibition of Sculpture, Painting, Printmaking, Photography and Mixed Media.

Brennan, T., Brennan, T., 2022. Waking ????????, Athens Digital Arts Festival and Primarolia Arts Festival, 22/3/2022 - 11/9/2022.

Mitha, A., 2022. Where is Home, Whitworth art gallery, 12/8/2022 - 26/2/2023.

Mitha, A., 2021. EART - A MANIFESTO OF POSSIBILITIES - CURATED BY ALNOOR MITHA, Manchester International festival various public sites, 1/7/2021 - 18/7/2021.

Hunt, A., Semeiko, A., 2021. Emotionarama, PEER, 20/8/2021 - 28/8/2021.

Loveless, N., Caulfield, S., Koski, K., Fisher, C., Mahon, P., Alvaer, J., Hou, A., Hoffman, S., Holst, J., Humphrey, A., Tonoyan, M., Kwon, VS-Y., 2021. Immune Nations, McMaster Museum of Art, Canada, 14/9/2021 - 10/12/2021.

Biswas, S., Biswas-Rodgers, S., 2021. Lumen: Sutapa Biswas, Kettle's Yard, 16/10/2021 - 30/1/2022.

Biswas-Rodgers, S., 2021. Lumen: Sutapa Biswas, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, 26/6/2021 - 20/3/2022.

Tan, KS., 2021. Running Artfully Network: curatorial intervention and creative research, Online, 26/2/2021 - 26/2/2021.

Artefacts

Copsey, R., 2022. 'Erosion 3', UK.

Atkinson, L-J., 2022. 'Lino LAB'.

Copsey, R., 2022. 'Paintscape 20', Russia.

Copsey, R., 2022. 'Paintscape20', UK.

Copsey, R., 2022. 'Untitled 2014', Moldova.

Copsey, R., 2022. 'Untitled2014', Moldova.

Tan, KS., 2021. 'A Neuro-Futuristic 2050', Attenborough Arts Centre.

Performances

Tan, KS., 2023. 'A 'Tentacular Pedagogy' to Lead 2050', European League of Institutes of the Arts' Teachers Academy (ELIA) Academy bootcamp, 24/11/2021 - 4/2/2022.

Spiers, A., Oshodi, M., 2022. 'Flatland', Dilston Grove, Southwark Park, 4/5/2015.

Stinton, C., Jetzer, C., McGarrigle, C., Muir, H., 2022. 'Liturgie', The Place, London as part of Tete a Tete Opera Festival, 25/7/2017.

Tan, KS., 2021. 'Exceptional talent, the state of fun & islands of after death: one artist/curator/woman's tale of how art & mobilities collide through 100 slides', Peter Scott Gallery, 3/7/2018 - 3/7/2018.

Books

Campbell, P., 2022. '...Ship of fools', Informa UK Limited, London.

Hunt, A., Lebahn, D., Römer, S., 2022. 'All Go Rhythm - This is a Free Concert', Slimvolume.

Hunt, A., Fry, J., Stanley, B., Haines, L., 2022. 'James Fry 'A Licence to Rock and Pop: An Inventory of Attitude'', Slimvolume.

Reason, M., Conner, L., Johanson, K., Walmsley, B., 2022. 'Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts', Routledge.

Hunt, A., Evans, C., Potter, CR., 2022. 'Sudden Wealth with Roy Claire Potter', Slimvolume.

Turner, J., Campbell, P., 2021. 'A Poetics of Third Theatre Performer Training, Dramaturgy, Cultural Action', Perspectives on Performer Training, London.

Hunt, A., Holden, A., Woolcott, T., 2021. 'Andy Holden, Collected Free Labour: Blog Interviews 2010-2021', Slimvolume.

Hunt, A., Lewisohn, C., 2021. 'Cedar Lewisohn The Seven Plagues of Seven Angels', Slimvolume.

Kennedy-Schtyk, B., 2021. 'Imaging Migration in Post-War Britain', Routledge.

Gladston, P., Kennedy-Schtyk, B., Turner, M., 2021. 'Introduction', Springer Singapore.

Hunt, A., Dag Holmboe, R., Allan, S., 2021. 'Nicol Allan: Collages', Slimvolume.

Ridinghouse, 2021. 'Sutapa Biswas Lumen'.

, 2021. 'Visual Culture Wars at the Borders of Contemporary China', Springer Singapore.

Gladston, P., Kennedy-Schtyk, B., Turner, M., 2021. 'Visual Culture Wars at the Borders of Contemporary China Art, Design, Film, New Media and the Prospects of "Post-West" Contemporaneity', Palgrave Macmillan.

Jurack, B., 2021. 'What's left behind', Williamson Art Gallery and Museum.

Book Chapters

Lineham, M., 2023. '(TBC) Atmospheres at the British Seaside Amusement Arcade through a focus on Light and Dark'. In Steadman, C., Coffin, J. (eds.) Consuming Atmospheres: Designing, Experiencing, and Researching Atmospheres in Consumption Spaces, Routledge, London.

Tan, KS., 2023. 'An exploration of running as metaphor, methodology, material through the RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale #r3fest 2016'. In Long, J., Sandle, D. (eds.) Interrelationships Between Sport and the Arts, Routledge.

Barber, F., 2023. 'Women in Long Kesh/Maze prison: We Were There (2014), memory and visuality'. In McAtackney, L., Ó Catháin, M. (eds.) Routledge Handbook on the Northern Ireland Troubles and the Peace Process, Routledge.

Pinchbeck, M., Baynton, R., 2022. 'Co-creation'. In Reason, M., Conner, L., Johanson, K., Walmsley, B. (eds.) Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts (2020), Routledge.

Baynton, R., Pinchbeck, M., 2022. 'Co-creation'. In Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts, pp. 409-417, Routledge.

Hunt, A., 2022. 'Elizabeth MaGill'. In Elizabeth Magill: Flag Iris, Miles McEnery Gallery.

Child, D., 2021. ''Invisble Hands': Perceiving Labour in Contemporary Art'. In Sonsbeek20->24 Force Times Distance Reader #1:On Labour, Archive Books.

Ravetz, A., 2021. 'From documenting culture to experimenting with cultural phenomena: Using fine art pedagogies with visual anthropology students'. In Creativity and Cultural Improvisation, pp. 247-265.

Gladston, P., Kennedy-Schtyk, B., 2021. 'Rendering Frontiers: From China's Historical Dynastic-Imperial to Modern Republican Borders and the Changing Significances of Chinese Art'. In Visual Culture Wars at the Borders of Contemporary China, pp. 105-130, Springer Singapore.

Media

Tan, KS., 2021. 'How to Thrive in 2050'.

Reports

Maples, H., Edelman, J., FitzGibbon, A., Harris, L., Klich, R., Tartoff, K., Young, A., 2022. 'Freelancers in the Dark: the economic, cultural, and social impacts of Covid-19 on theatre freelancers', University of Essex.

Edelman, J., Vincent, A., O'Keeffe, E., Kolata, P., Minott, MA., Steurzenhofecker, K., Bailey, J., Roding Pemberton, C., Lowe, D., 2021. 'British Ritual Innovation under COVID-19', Manchester Metropolitan University.

Child, D., 2021. 'Culture in Crisis: Impacts of Covid-19 on the UK Cultural Sector and Where We Go From Here'.

Internet Publications

Child, D., Gray, K., Weeks, H., Wright, J., 2021. 'Why Digital Isn't Enough', https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/why-digital-isnt-enough.

Journal Articles

Barber, F., Gilson, J., 2023. 'Stormy Weather: textile art, water and climate emergency', Textile: the journal of cloth and culture.

Turner, J., 2022. '...Ship of fools', Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 13 (1), pp. 154-154.

Hunt, A., 2022. 'Allison Katz', Artforum International, May 2022.

Tan, KS., 2022. 'Art and psychiatry in the 21st century: here's to more messy - and magical - entanglements', BJPsych Bulletin, 46 (2), pp. 105-108.

Ledger, AJ., Kuhlmann, A., Christoffersen, EE., Turner, J., Campbell, P., Chemi, T., 2022. 'From the centre to the periphery', Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 13 (1), pp. 156-158.

Singleton, H., 2022. 'On the Hill: Representations and retellings of the Pendle Witches' history within the rural landscape of Lancashire, England', revenant, Winter 2022.

Genc, EA., Kennedy-Schtyk, B., Miles, S., 2022. 'Reimagining the cultural impact of neoliberalism: an analysis of Istanbul and Liverpool biennials', International Journal of Cultural Policy, pp. 1-16.

Pinchbeck, MD., Egan, K., 2022. 'Staging Scores: Devising Contemporary Performances from Classical Music', Volume 8, 8 (1), 30.

Campbell, P., Turner, J., 2022. 'The Clinch and the Crack: Rupture and Resolution in Third Theatre's Laboratory Practices', Arts, 11 (6), pp. 118-118.

Child, D., 2022. 'The Great Escape: The Visibility of Class in Tracey Emin's Margate', Oxford Art Journal, 45 (2), pp. 253-268.

Oliver, E., Whitehall, J., 2022. 'The Past Dreams the Future Present': Dream as Political Visual Historiography in the work of Artist and Film Maker Derek Jarman (Aug 22) IDEA Journal: Interdisciplinary Discourses, Education and Analysis www.lcir.co.uk/publications', IDEA - Interdisciplinary Discourses, Education and Analysis, 2, pp. 72-88.

Hunt, A., 2021. ''Curator Conversations'', Source Magazine.

Hunt, A., 2021. 'Across the Universe: Andrew Hunt on the Liverpool Biennial', Artforum International.

Gallo, LMH., Giampietro, V., Zunszain, PA., Tan, KS., 2021. 'Covid-19 and Mental Health: Could Visual Art Exposure Help?', Frontiers in Psychology, 12.

Selva, AL., Campbell, P., Nie, M., Maciel, A., 2021. 'Cross Pollination's Nomadic Laboratory: a praxis in-between practices', Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, 11 (4), pp. e113814-e113814.

Hunt, A., 2021. 'Curator as Zelig', Art Monthly, 444, pp. 14-16.

Grimshaw, A., Ravetz, A., 2021. 'Desenhar com uma câmera? Filme etnográfico e antropologia transformadora', GIS - Gesto, Imagem e Som - Revista de Antropologia, 6 (1).

Campbell, PGW., Linden, J., 2021. 'Expanded Practice and Curation as Creative Process: An Introductory Assemblage', REPERTÓRIO: Teatro & Dança, 19 (27), pp. 11-20.

Hunt, A., 2021. 'Jamie Crewe', Artforum International.

Tan, KS., 2021. 'The artful agile atypical octopussy', Performance Research: a journal of the performing arts, 26 (4), pp. 128-129.

Tidmarsh, A., 2021. 'To Instruct', Text: for the Study of the History, Art and Design of Textiles, 48, pp. 64-70.

Tan, KS., 2021. 'Towards an anti-racist Fine Art Ph.D.: 'Anti-racism productive antagonisms' (ARPA) for the supervisor, student and examiner', Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 20 (1), pp. 49-63.

Non-Peer Reviewed Articles

Child, D., 2021. 'Why We Need to Rethink Access to the Arts', Elephant Magazine, 45, pp. 153-154.

Conference Papers

Warstat, A., 2022. 'Exhausting metaphor - Andrea Fisher and the infinitely deferred image', Times of Metaphor : A Symposium on the Temporal, Metaphorical, and the Still and Moving Image, Royal College of Art, 8/7/2022 - 8/7/2022.

Other Outputs

Tan, KS., 2022. 'An exploration of running as metaphor, methodology, material through the RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale #r3fest 2016'.

Simpson, ES., White, B., 2022. 'Auditory Learning'.

Biswas-Rodgers, S., 2022. 'Flights of Passage by Sutapa Biswas. Part of RadioCity2014/15, Tate Britain'.

Cornejo Alvarez, J., 2022. 'Puno Museum of Contemporary Art'.

White, B., Simpson, E., 2022. 'Toward Usership: Collaborative data mining in an orchestra's record collection.'.

Tan, KS., 2022. 'Using Tentacular Pedagogy to change the HE culture'.

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