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We are always reviewing our alumni records. If you are a London Consortium graduate, we would love to hear from you! Please send your messages and contact details to info@londonconsortium.com so that we may keep you posted of London Consortium events and opportunities in the future. Many thanks.
MRes Humanities and Cultural Studies
PhD Humanities and Cultural Studies
MA Film Curating
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Biographies (alphabetically)
Jeff Adams (PhD 2005) pursued his PhD thesis on the Hollywood Western. He now works as a County Planner in Blaine County, Idaho, and is continuing to work on hiw writing.
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Liz Adams has a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Iota Fiction, The Frogmore Papers, morphrog, and Stand. Her first collection of poems, Green Dobermans, will be published in 2011. She has recently completed a novel set in contemporary London. Her research interests include colour theory, philosophy of language, poetics, and the relationship between poetry and painting.
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Ruth Adams (PhD 2005) took her first degree in Sociology and Visual Culture at Lancaster University gaining a first class BA (Hons). After a year out working for the RSA, she returned to study with the London Consortium. Having completed the MRes - dissertation title ‘Remote Culture: British Television and the Visual Arts’ - she undertook research for her PhD thesis - ‘Gentlemen and Players: The Victoria & Albert Museum and the Narrative of Culture and Commerce’. Ruth is currently a lecturer on the MA in Cultural and Creative Industries at Kings College, London. She has catholic interests beyond her current emphases on museums and the relationships between culture and social class, and art and industry - predominantly Modern and contemporary art, British popular culture and Country & Western music.
Will Alderwick (MRes 2006) studied philosophy at UCL before joining the Consortium’s MRes program in 2005, specialising in the application of contemporary continental philosophy to the arts as a cultural paragon. Writing on Orlan, Gilbert&George, Beckett, Burroughs and Pasolini he explored novelty, truth and immanence in terms of Badiou’s philosophy and inaesthetics specifically. Continuing to play music in bands gigging across the UK and Europe, Will is currently Editorial Assistant at Varoom: the journal of illustration and made-images and a freelance writer.
Thomas Altheimer (MRes 2006) has an MA in comparative literature and a BA in political science from the University of Copenhagen. Since graduation he has worked as dramaturg/performer/producer for a Danish experimental theatre platform. He is currently involved in a project that aims to write world history as if it was a novel. Main research interests are questions of sovereignty and representation.
Noam Andrews BFA, AADipl is a chartered London-based architect. He graduated from Cornell University and the Architectural Association and since 2007 has taught a Diploma Unit at the Architectural Association. He has worked at practices in London, New York, and Paris and built his own projects in New York and Florida. He is co-director of the architectural practice Mi+Ko and is involved in film and music projects such as the forthcoming album by Philip Harmonic. His research interests include investigating the collapse of the gap separating the spaces of materialization and representation in architecture through an interrogation of contemporary digital practices and their relationship to earlier crises within the history of imaging technology.
Elina Axioti (MRes 2006) is an architect who graduated from the University of Thessaly, Department of Architecture in Greece. Her academic background is in theory and design. She participated in several competitions and exhibitions. Recent works and current research interests include: Marginal Boundaries: The Project concerns a seascape and negotiates in this, two “limits”. The problematic in this project is based in the mathematical theory of topology. The Bathroom: Interrelated Disappearances: An attempt to interpret the shaping and the set up of the space of the contemporary Western bathroom through an anthropological, sociological and psychoanalytical approach.
Gillian Barnard received a BA in Art History from Duke University and an MA in Contemporary Art from Sotheby’s Institute in London. Her MA dissertation focused on the importance of truth and accuracy in the works of Sophie Calle and Christian Boltanski. Her PhD thesis will focus on the correlation between memory and the still image in contemporary art and film. Gillian currently works for an art marketing and PR company in London.
Kathy Battista (PhD 2005) did a BA in Art History and English Literature at Fordham University, New York, and an MA in Art History at the Courtauld Institute in London. Her PhD dissertation is called Women’s Work: Feminist Artists in 1970s London. Kathy is co-author of Art New York (ellipsis, 2000) and Recent Architecture in The Netherlands (ellipsis, 1998), which was published in five languages including English, Dutch, French, German and Cantonese. She is also an editor of Contemporary magazine and a Research Fellow of The London Consortium. She is Head of Interaction at Artangel and is currently working on forthcoming projects with Richard Wentworth, Steve McQueen, Matthew Barney and Shirin Neshat. She is a visiting lecturer at a number of art schools in London and serves as external advisor for the new course ‘Spatial Arts’ at London Metropolitan.
David Beard Bates (MRes 2003) In 2001 Beard graduated summa cum laude, with Honors in English, from Hampden-Sydney College (Virginia). Outside academia he has written/performed/produced four nationally (US) released albums of original music; founded an independent record label; produced and directed music videos; written three literary novels-one to be published in Spring 2003-one book of poetry, and a short-story collection; plus, exhibited original oil paintings and structural canvases in Florida and Virginia. Beard enjoys perception, inversions of pain, and the cartography of thoughts-recent interest has been directed towards the prescient nature of hypertext fiction and its portrayal of the horizon of aesthetic creation.
Mariateresa Boffo (MRes 1997) studied Law at the Universita’ degli Studi diParma, Italy, and joined the London Consortium in 1996. She is the author of a novel (Senza Mani, La Tartaruga, Milano 1995), and of several translations as well as magazine features. She works for Penguin Classics and Modern Classics, in London.
Antonis Bogadakis (MRes 2002) wrote his MRes dissertation about Pain (aesthetics, language and visions of pain in Pasolini’s Medea) a topic he worked on in his essays too. Antonis studied history at Aristotle’s University (Thessaloniki, Greece), 19th and 20th century European Intellectual and Cultural History at Queen Mary College (London) and Urban Studies at King’s College (London). He has worked as features manager at the Greek Art Projects art journal in Athens and now lives and works in Stockholm.
Dorothée Brill (PhD 2007) studied history of art in Tübingen and Toulouse and contemporary art and art and media theory at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung | ZKM Karlsruhe, from where she obtained her Magister Artium in 2000 with a dissertation on the body and its image in early video art. She worked in various jobs within curating, exhibition organisation, project administration, museum education and video documentation in Germany, UK, United States and Turkey. Her PhD investigated the destruction and refusal of meaning as an artistic strategy of shock in the 20th century examined in view of Dadaism and Fluxus.
Leandro Cardoso is a prospective Latin American dictator spending some formative years in Europe. Founder of PPUB - Partido pela Utopia Brasileira, he shows a particular interest in modern and contemporary arts and art institutions as a way of addressing the public.
Hester Chan (MRes 2005) holds a BA Fine Arts (Willem de Kooning, Rotterdam 2001), MA Literary Theory( Leiden University, 2002) and completed her research masters at London Consortium on the subject of the private gallery in the UK. Over the years she has been active in the arts as co-founder/curator of the Brave New Art-programme in the Netherlands (2002-2004), associate at Gagosian Gallery (2004-2005), jury member of the A. Roland-Holst prize (2006), freelance-writer for art publications, Mr. Motley and Metropolis M, and most recently co-director of STORE, London.
Patricia Chan was born and raised in Ireland and received her BA in Fine Art Photography from Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art and Design. In 2005 she moved to London to continue her studies and received her MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art. Her master’s dissertation, Cavus, is a phenomenological reading of the cave as a metaphor for alienation in modernity. With the working title, The Aesthetics of Borders, her PhD research focuses on lens-based representation of the nomadic within contemporary art practice. She looks forward to time spent on writing, travelling and doing photographic fieldwork.
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Tom Cole (MRes 2004) graduated from Nottingham University in 2003, where he gained a BA in art history. Since then he has been working in a contemporary art gallery in New York. His other interests include photography, obscure electronica and travel, while the development of his trainer collection is ongoing. At The London Consortium he is looking forward to continuing his research into questions of identity and performance within contemporary art.
Boukje Cnossen comes from The Netherlands and has lived in Amsterdam for the past five years. She holds a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Amsterdam. During her studies, she participated an honours programme at the Gerrit Rietveld art academy in Amsterdam, exploring the combination of academic research methods with artistic methods. Finally, she focused on the influence that esoteric and spiritual currents have had on western culture, including art. Boukje has been working as a journalist for several Dutch news papers and magazines, writing about a lot of things, but mostly about contemporary art and theatre. She is particularly interested in the relationship between art and morality.
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Alexis Cooke (MRes 2005) graduated with a BA in Studio Art and International Economics from Beloit College, Wisconsin. After a year pursuing an MRes with the Consortium on contemporary museum culture and working for the Tate Galleries in London she returned to Chicago to follow a career in arts administration. Never one to sit still for too long, she hopes to eventually continue her education in art history and always have an excuse to travel.
Alasdair Craig received his BA in History from the University of Oxford in 2010. He is interested in how individuals and groups attempt to locate a sense of permanent self-identity in a world in which change and innovation are regarded as benchmarks of achievement. He is also interested in debates about the role of human agency in historical change. By doing a multidisciplinary Masters he hopes to enhance his ability to study the complicated, multifarious and overlapping forces of history.
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Benjamin Cranfield (MRes 2003) has been working in the contemporary arts sector since graduating from Cambridge with a BA in History in 2001. For two years he was a director of Houldsworth Gallery, London working with contemporary artists to promote, sell and curate their work. In 2002/3 he completed an MRes at the London Consortium focusing on London visual print culture of the late Eighteenth century. Currently he is completing the ICA/Consortium Studentship/PhD awarded by the AHRC, producing the first history of the ICA from inception in 1947 to the present, with the aim of creating a cultural and art-historical analysis of post-war Britain at the, much neglected, institutional level. He will also be holding talks and curating events around the ICA’s history both in and around the institute. Ben continues to work within the arts sector as a cultural consultant offering research, writing and management skills to academics, galleries and artists.
Paola Crespi (MRes 2006) graduated in Philosophy at the University of Padova (Italy). She has investigated the Philosophy of Leibniz and in particular the concept of relationship between Monads.
Ben Dawson (PhD 2011) has a BA in English Literature from Durham and an MA in Modern Literature from Birkbeck where, under the supervision of Steven Connor, he wrote a dissertation on relations of Law and Life in Ulysses. Drawing on recent theorisations of the biopolitical, and responding to a new vitalism in much contemporary philosophy, his PhD investigates the allegation that, in modernity, ‘life’ is immediately politics, and focuses on connections in the late eighteenth century between the evolving discourse of rights, physical and metaphysical conceptions of the ‘vivifying principle’, and the ‘birth of biopolitics’. In a separate project, Ben is editing for publication a doctor’s wartime account of life as a prisoner of the Japanese on the Burma railway.
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Cormac Deane (PhD 2010) wrote his thesis on the proliferation of images of terrorists and counter-terrorists in fiction and Hollywood films of the last two decades. The research explores the reasons why we encounter terrorists so often, the consequences of their proliferation and the nature of their representation. Primary supervisor is Costas Douzinas, secondary supervisor is Joanna Bourke, both of Birkbeck. Cormac was born Dublin in 1972. He has an MA in Film Studies from University College Dublin and a BA in English and Russian from Trinity College Dublin. He worked as a TV news journalist in Berlin for five years.
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Paloma Diaz (MRes 2001) holds a degree in Political Science from the Complutentse University of Madrid. She worked for several years in various jobs at the Architectural Association in London, and currently works for the Fundacion Metropoli in Madrid, where she is the Assistant to the President and Director of Communications. www.fundacion-metropoli.org.
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Ricardo Domizio (MRes 2002) has a BSc in Electronic Engineering, a BA in Film Studies and English and an MA in Gender, Culture and Society. A hybrid identity, he is of Italian descent, but born, educated, and living in London. His career profile spans journalism, photography and video production and he have been working part-time as a Film Studies Lecturer at the University of North London. His principal research interests lie in gender representation in film, and in particular, the interplay between potentially new forms of gendered subjectivity brought into being by a highly technologised body and society, and capitalist attempts to appropriate and commodify this. He’s also interested in researching the way modern architecture shapes and influences narrative and subjectivity in film.
Sarah Dorrington studied medicine at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and has spent three years working with destitute asylum-seekers in the North East. She has worked in Ghana and Togo and is currently part of an HDV film project with a London based artist and Curanderas in Mexico.
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Jacob Dreyer (MRes 2010) received a BA in Cultural Studies from the College of William and Mary in 2008. An American, he spent the past year in Shanghai exploring the strange world of the new Chinese city. His MA work will probably focus on cultural expression that responds to urban texts, both established ones (e.g. London, New York, Paris) and those which are mutable and in the process of rapid change (such as Shanghai), thus drawing on art history, urban studies, and related fields.
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Nathan Dunne (PhD 2011) studied art history at Cambridge University. He is the editor of Tarkovsky (2008) and his thesis was on the British artist John Latham.
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Lina Dzuverovic-Russell (MRes 2004) runs a London based curatorial/production agency called (Electra . Formerly Lina was New Media Curator at the ICA and prior to this she worked for Mute Magazine, The Lux Centre, OVEN Digital and the Pandaemonium Festival. Lina also regularly works with the British Council on projects across Europe and has guest curated projects for a number of international festivals. Her writing has appeared in magazines including Artforum, Contemporary, Mute, The Wire and Res as well as a number of digital culture journals.
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Nicky Falkof (PhD 2011) holds a BA and a postgraduate Honours in English from the University of Cape Town, and a Masters in Critical Theory from the University of Sussex. She is the current recipient of the Birkbeck International Research Studentship and the London Consortium International Bursary. Her doctoral research is on the cultural pathologies surrounding the end of whiteness in late apartheid South Africa. She is also one of the organisers of the AHRC-sponsored In-Sight series of visual culture conferences and is on the editorial board of the The Thread, the Consortium’s radio show on Resonance 104.4FM. She has been, among various other incarnations, a journalist and editor, author of feminist polemics (Ball and Chain: the Trouble with Modern Marriage published by Vision Books in 2007) and singer in a Yiddish reggae band.
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Matthew Flintham (MRes 2003) graduated from Central Saint Martins (London) with a BA (Hons) in painting in 1993. He was involved in establishing and maintaining a number of under-the-radar art galleries and events (notably Milch and Toolroom Salon) before embarking on a short career in performance art. After taking a nice day job at Tate Britain as a technician, Matthew had the flexibility to complete the MRes at the Consortium (looking into the impact of military architecture and land-use in the UK). He is now a senior technician in Conservation at Tate Britain but actively pursuing international photographic projects. See www.flickr.com/photos/flintham.
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Alice Gavin (PhD 2011) Alice’s research at the London Consortium investigates the imbricate relationship of consciousness with architecture in modernism, both literary and filmic. She holds a BA in Modern History and English from the University of Oxford and an MA in European Culture from University College London.
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Dagmara Genda (MRes 2010) is a Polish-Canadian artist and writer. She has exhibited in numerous Canadian cities from Calgary to Toronto and maintains an active drawing and installation practice, examples of which can be found on her website. Her artistic interests include national identity and cultural hybridity. After graduating with her Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Western Ontario, Dagmara worked as a practicing artist, an editorial committee and board member of BlackFlash magazine as well as the Gallery + Communications Coordinator at AKA Gallery. She continues to write reviews for BlackFlash and is also the guest editor of the May 2010 issue. Her PhD research includes space and subjectivity in contemporary Polish installation art and the effects of political and economic transition on visual culture.
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Linda Gieres (PhD 2011) is a dance choreographer, performer, teacher and writer. Originally from Luxembourg, she graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with an MFA in dance in 2004. She holds a BA in dance with a concentration in dance history and criticism from Marymount Manhattan College in New York and the Diplôme d’Etat de Professeur de Danse from the French Ministry of Culture. Her PhD thesis at the London Consortium is entitled “A Question of Interpretation: Form, Context and Meaning in the Dances of Mary Wigman and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.”
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Francis Gooding (Mres 1999, PhD submitted 2005) completed a BA in the History of Art at the University of East Anglia in 1997, and an MA in Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1998. His doctoral research focused on the relationship between nature and history.
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Dominique Gough (PhD 2004) now working for the Chiltern Group in Jersey, specialising in corporate and trust services to Eastern Europe and other emerging markets. Currently undertaking an MSc in Corporate Governance with Bournemouth University and researching a personal project on the link between truth-telling and patronage in the work of Maistre Wace.
Hannah Gregory is currently researching the space of reading, the tensions between the material and the digital, matter and modernity. She graduated from UCL in 2009 with a BA in Literature, Film and Cultural Studies, and has since worked in research, curation and translation at the Centre Pompidou, the V & A, and the French Institute. She writes about film, art and music for various publications, and contributes to the Autopsies Dead Objects research group. She edited a short-story collection entitled Vertigo of the Modern in 2009. She is interested in new forms of publishing that bridge printed and online platforms.
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Ahmet Gurata (PhD 2002) has a BA in Economics from Ankara University and an MA in Graphic Design from Bilkent University, Turkey. His research interests include: World Cinema and visual culture. He is teaching at Gazi University.
Susanna Haddon (MRes 2006) graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2002 and the London Consortium in 2006. She writes about art and works collaboratively in video.
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Seong-ju Ham holds a BA in Oriental Philosophy from Sungkyunkwn University in South Korea. In 1998, she gained an MA in History of Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London. She also studied in the Fine Art department of the University of Leeds for one year.
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Clare Hamman (MRes 2006) is fascinated by the interactions that occur on the public stage of the city between resident institutions and individuals. How one views cultural phenomena is affected by the ‘Value’ imposed by modern society, advertising and celebrity. Her interest in these areas is born from an academic background in architecture and working at both architectural and advertising firms. This combines with a general fascination of how the stimulation of the senses can manipulate one’s experiences.
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Marieke Hendriksen (MRes, 2007) gained an MA in aesthetics from Utrecht University, the Netherlands (2005) with a thesis dealing with the question whether gastronomy is an art. After a short spell working as a campaigner for an NGO she joined the London Consortium in 2006. She left the consortium with a thesis entitled ‘The use, value and meaning of food in contemporary art - a case study’. As from September 2008 she will be undertaking PhD research at Leiden University, the Netherlands, within the project ‘Cultures of Collecting’. The project focuses on the philosophical, educational and historical contexts and implications of the Leiden anatomical collections. Apart from this, Marieke is still interested in the philosophy of food and taste and in food culture.
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Christopher Hight is an associate professor at the Rice University School of Architecture, where he is pursuing design and research on architecture’s potential at the nexus of social, natural and subjective ecologies within the built environment. In collaboration with colleagues and student researchers he has recently completed a design strategy for the bayou system in Houston, available at www.hydraulicty.org, and is working with John Anderson on a book examining alternative models of coastal development based on the case study of Galveston Island. He has been a Fulbright Scholar and obtained a masters degree in Histories and Theories of Architecture from the Architectural Association, and a Ph.D. from the London Consortium at the University of London. He has taught in the Architectural Association’s Design Research Laboratory, and has worked for the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. He has lectured and published internationally in books and journals including Harvard Design Magazine, Praxis, Perspecta, and AD. He is the co-editor of Space Reader: Heterogeneous Space in Architecture (2009), and AD: Collective Intelligence in Design (2006), and has recently published a book on subjectivity and epistemology since the middle of the 20th century, Architectural Principles in the Age of Cybernetics (2008). He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Rice Design Alliance.
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Louise Hojer (MRes 2004) studied philosophy and politics at the University of Kent at Canterbury. She has since continued to combine these fields with aesthetics in a Masters dissertation at the London Consortium. She is currently writing a Phd with the working title ‘Within and Out of Walls’ whereby she hopes to explore the political nature of aesthtics, specifically through the house as an artistic object. Louise is also active in curating events that will bridge the gap between academia, the arts and the general public.
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Lorens Holm (MRes 1999, PhD 2003) researched areas of cross-over between architectural space and space as it is invoked in psychoanalytic theory. He is an architect whose projects have been published in the US and Europe. He currently teaches theory at the Bartlett, the AA, and the Mackintosh. Before coming to London, he was an assistant professor of architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also had a small practice. He has an MArch degree from Harvard GSD and a First in philosophy from the University of Wales. He has an AHRB fellowship.
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Michelle Holmes (MRes 2004) graduated as a mature student from the School of Oriental and African Studies with a BA in Social Anthropology in 1999. Passionate about critical theory and had a stab at an exploration of links, complications and contradictions between Frankfurt School aesthetic theory and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory in contemporary cultural contexts of artistic production and reception. This somewhat did her head in and she now looks back nostalgically and with a more muted passion at the same. She is now keeping her feet more firmly planted, teaching English as a second language in East London. There is life after Adorno/Lacan (tho’ much the better for having known them…)
Bridget Holroyd (MRes 2002) graduated from UCL with a B.A. in History with a European Language in 1996. After working at the Bloomsbury Theatre for a year she moved to Japan, where she taught for three years, before travelling through Australia and New Zealand on the way home.
Tim Horsburgh (MRes 2005) is primarily interested, although prone to lapses. This did not stop him from graduating with a First in History from University College London in 2003, with a thesis on Kidnapping in Colombia. After making a trilogy of short films on contemporary Guyanese society, Tim travelled and filmed in South America and South-East Asia before embarking upon the MRes at the London Consortium. He was grateful for the opportunity to write about Synaesthesia in Chris Cunningham’s music videos; The Argument (with Alexis Cooke); Museums and Dark Tourism; Poker as a Way of Life; When Evil can and should be funny; and finally a thesis on What (if anything) modern movies can teach us about Living in the Moment. He is currently looking to the future with a wistful eye and love in his heart, and will soon be once again pursuing gainful employment in foreign climes.
Clea House (MRes 2005) has an academic background in classical languages and philosophy. Within the field of philosophy her main areas of interest are aesthetics and Indian philosophy. Her personal background is bilingual (English-Spanish) and bi-cultural although she was educated at Spanish state schools.
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Samantha Jayne Hulston (MRes 2006) studied English Language and Literature at King’s College, London before fleeing the country to work as an English language teacher in Quebec for one year. Upon her return, she worked as the Press Officer for Battersea Arts Centre. In October 2005, she joined the London Consortium’s MRes programme, completing the course by submitting a dissertation on the experiential in digital and networked art. During her Masters studies, Samantha co-curated an exhibition of photography for a central London squat, worked with the artist collective Take2030 on a digital art project, co-ordinated a graduate conference entitled ‘Happiness: Lessons from the Arts’ with PhD students at Queen Mary and worked with a London-based art-activist group to realise a conference in Leipzig on surveillance culture.
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Jess Hyslop graduated from Cambridge in 2010 with a BA in English. During her time at university she won a place on the Marlowe Society scriptwriting masterclass, and first prize in the Murray Edwards college creative writing competition. She was also pleasantlysurprised to be awarded the Quiller-Couch prize for the best Original Composition in her year. Jess’s undergraduate dissertation discussed the possibilities opened up by ‘zeroed’ time and space in J.G.Ballard’s short fiction – an idea she wishes to build upon in thecoming year. On a broader scale, Jess’s interests include (in no particular order): apocalyptic scenarios, immersive and site-specific theatre, fantasy, cityscapes (better if ruined), mythic narrative structures, and coffee.
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Ikuko Sakakibara was born in Nagoya, Japan, and studied architecture at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. After doing a workshop in France sponsored by the Vitra Design Museum and the Centre Pompidou, she decided to stay on in Europe and studied for a Masters degree at the Dessau Institute of Architecture in Germany. Ikuko went on to work at Zaha Hadid Architects in London. She is interested in making comparisons between Eastern and Western cultures of consumption and reflecting upon the myth of minimalism in contemporary architecture.
Catherine James (PhD 2004) gained a BA Hons in English and German at UEA in 1986. Catherine has worked throughout BBC Network Radio, and finally as a Studio Manager at the World Service. She went on to study for a BSc Hons in Music at City University (and the Guildhall School of Music), graduating with a First Class Honours and winning the Worshipful Company of Mercer’s Prize for Outstanding Performance. Since completing the MRes at the LondonConsortium in 1999, Catherine has worked as a visiting lecturer at Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design, and finished a PGCE at the University of Sussex. She is currently a Lecturer in Fine and Decorative Arts at Christie’s and Books Editor for Contemporary Magazine.
Mary Ellyn Johnson (MRes 2003) received a BA in Art History from Gustavus Adolphus College and a MA in Art History from Richmond University. At the Consortium she focused on issues surrounding globalism in the curatorial practices of Contemporary Art. Currently she works in the Exhibitions Department at the San Francisco Art Institute. Previously she worked as a Librarian at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
May Adadol Ingawanij (Mres 1998, PhD 2006) wrote her PhD on ‘Hyperbolic Heritage: Bourgeois Spectatorship and Contemporary Thai Cinema’. She has published works on Apichatpong Weerasethakul (in New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film), the discourse of quality in world cinema (in Spectator: The University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television Criticism) and Thai heritage films (in Representing the Rural: Space, Place, and Identity in Films about the Land, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies and South East Asia Research). Between 2004-6 she taught world cinema at Goldsmiths and the University of East London. She is one of the organisers of the annual New Southeast Asian Cinemas conference, held on a rotating basis in the region.
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Ermana Kaplama (PhD 2011) holds a BA in Political Science from Bilkent University (Ankara, Turkey). He has an MSc degree in Political Theory from the LSE and works as a Private Tutor of Philosophy, Politics and Turkish for Alpha Tutors. His PhD research covers Nietzsche, the Dionysian, Pre-Platonic Aesthetics, Greek Tragedy and 18th and 19th century German Aesthetics. It will focus on the generation, development and revival of the Aesthetics of Human Nature from Homeric Gods to 19th century German Tradition with reference to Nietzschean Aesthetics.
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Evgeniy Kazannik holds degrees in Law from Kaliningrad State University, Russia. Coming to London in 2001, he became interested in visual arts and completed a certificate in professional photography practice at London College of communications pursuing his old passion and love for photography. He is currently curating a short film festival ‘Future Shorts’, has organised a series of exhibitions in the Baltics, is involved in the organisation of the Russian Film Festival in London, started the music night ‘Eugenesis’, and recently initiated a project called ‘Secret Cinema’. Evgeniy’s research interests focus on the convergence of visual arts and music.
Dean Kenning (PhD 2008) wrote his thesis on the political value of idiocy in contemporary art. He is an artist, recently had a solo show at Flaca gallery. He has written catalogue essays and reviews in Modern Painters.
Natalie Khan (nee Thoma) (MRes 1998) has worked in the fashion industry as a distribution manager for several brands including Calvin Klein, Donna Karan and Prada. She wrote a chapter entitled ‘Catwalk Politics’ inFashion Theory (Routledge, 2000, ed. Stella Bruzzi and Pamela Church Gibson). Since raising a family, Natalie has returned to academia and will start teaching cultural studies at Central Saint Martins in Autumn 2007.
Andrew Kim (MRes 2004) received a BA in Architecture from Yale University in 2000. His research at the Consortium centred around clubbing culture and its role as a practice of pleasure within a work-play construct. Currently he is preparing for Architecture School in the US.
Seth Kim-Cohen (PhD 2006) There is a lot of possible Mediterranean in the proposal of this man, the incredibly natural one who is magically able since ever to translate and convey the impossible equilibrium of his Chicago, a harsh and extremely sweet, sinuous and invented city; the one of maturity and power of the metronomic rhythmic heart, rich in numerous creative streamlets and in the infinite colors of thought; and the one of the volcanicity and rapture, made by that side of him which plunges its knife into the feelings in a trip of strong sensations, of which one would desire it never ended. End, though, it must: in tumultuous thesis of and in representational incompetence in music, literature, visual art. Shimmering, his person transmogrifies. 2006 finds this man the artist-in-residence of Yale University School of Art. All shadows grow in stature, as wind on the far side of mountains.
Jane Kingsley (MRes 2006) holds degrees in Biology and Psychology (Combined), and Photography, as well as an MRes from the London Consortium. She is interested in the role visual representation has played in natural history and the mutual influences of arts and sciences on historical and contemporary conceptions of animals. Her PhD research explored the cultural history of taxidermy from the stuffed birds of early collectors, through Victorian anthropomorphic tableaux and hoax mermaids to the recent resurgence of interest among contemporary artists and art schools.
Caroline M. Kisiel (MRes 2004); MA Interdisciplinary Arts (1997); BA English and Sociology (1988). Caroline has been an undergraduate and graduate level faculty member in two humanities-based programs at Roosevelt University in Chicago since 1997 (currently summers and online). Before moving to London in 2003 she was as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Roosevelt University, and in past years she supported herself in such work as immigration advocate in the US, Spanish/English interpreter, and car and bicycle messenger. Caroline’s 2003-4 year at the London Consortium lead her into the study of nationalism and ethnicity at the LSE, and she wrote her MRes dissertation on the National Portrait Galleries of Britain and the US and images of nationalism. She continues to live in London and has worked at the LSE in their Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, where she co-chaired the Association (04-05) and served as an Assistant Editor on the journal Nations and Nationalism (04-06). Continuing an exploration of travel and ancestry from her initial Master’s work (a live performance with video and sound/layered voices), Caroline is now pursuing her PhD at the University of Essex, researching British travel writings about the US in the early 19th century, focusing on early conceptions of the American nation, reflections on British and American character, and comments on slavery. An American of Polish and Sicilian background, her side project is visiting Italy and becoming fluent in Italian.
Katie Kitamura (PhD 2005) worte her dissertation on vulgarity in modern American literature. She received a BA from Princeton University and a MRes from the London Consortium. She is currently Reviews Editor of Contemporary Magazine, and is writing her first book (forthcoming 2006, Hamish Hamilton).
Melanie Koronka (MRes 2005) wrote her dissertation on the use of the body in the work of Robert Mapplethorpe and how contemporary representations of the male nude reflect the interests and concerns of the postmodern era.
Ozlem Koksal (PhD 2011) received her BA from Bilkent University in Turkey in the department of Communication and Design. She then came to London and did her MA in Goldsmiths College with a dissertation on recent Turkish Films. She is interested in the questions of how traumatic experiences are reflected in films, and the relation between film and collective memory.
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Jessica Kraft (MRes 2003) is an educator and designer based in San Francisco, CA. She has taught journalism, art history and sustainable design at various colleges in New York.up
Nina Krieger (MRes 2002) has a Bachelor of Arts in Honours History from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and a Master of Research from the London Consortium. She was Program Coordinator of the London Consortium Summer School at Tate Modern in 2002 and 2003, and has worked at Artangel and as a freelance project manager for various site-specific contemporary art projects, most recently for the 2004 Liverpool Biennial. She is currently developing educational and public programs at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, Canada.
Brandon LaBelle (PhD 2005) is an artist and writer working with sound and the specifics of location. Through his work with Errant Bodies Press he has co-edited the anthologies Site of Sound: Of Architecture and the Ear, Writing Aloud: The Sonics of Language, and Surface Tension: Problematics of Site. He initiated and curated the Beyond Music series and festivals from 1997-2002 at Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center in Los Angeles, and in 2001 he organized “Social Music”, a radio series for Kunstradio ORF, Vienna. His installation work has been featured in exhibitions and festivals internationally, including “Sound as Media” (2000) ICC Tokyo, “Bitstreams” (2001) Whitney, “Pleasure of Language” (2002) Netherlands Media Institute, and “Undercover” (2003) Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, and his writings have been included in various books and journals, including Experimental Sound and Radio (MIT) and Soundspace: Architecture for Sound and Vision (Birkhäuser). He presented a solo exhibition at Singuhr galerie in Berlin (2004), and an experimental composition for pirate drummers as part of Virtual Territories, Nantes (2005). His ongoing project to build a library of radio memories, “Phantom Radio”, will be presented in 2006 as part of Radio Revolten, Halle Germany. He is the author of Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art, (Continuum 2006).
Nick Lambrianou (PhD 2006) is an artist and writer. He currently lectures in art history, philosophy and critical theory for Birkbeck FCE, Westminster University and at Tate Modern. Recent and forthcoming publications include ‘Neo-Kantianism and Messianism: Origin and Interruption in Hermann Cohen and Walter Benjamin’, in Walter Benjamin: Critical Evaluations in Cultural Theory (ed. Peter Osborne, 3 vols, Routledge 2005), ‘Mouvement: Septième: Pièce Texte Répétée’ in Revue Le Quartanier 3/4 (Quebec, 2005) and ‘Antinomies of Narrated Experience’ in Journal of the British Society of Phenomenology (London, January 2006).
Jonathan Law (MRes 2009) is a Fine Art graduate from the Black Country. He has spent time working on the ins and outs of this and that, whilst entranced at his desk. Having escaped from this reverie he has now decided to apply himself to researching these ins and outs, to find out what really makes them tick and tock. Jon is interested in exploring the nature of truth and its relationship to representation, though spends most of his travel-time thinking about time-travel. His secret hope is to expose the lies of time itself through the creation of a collection of impossible objects, though not just yet. Other diversions include an encyclopedic memory of the history of film, particularly ones he has never seen. He also likes Sylvester Stallone, and hopes to contribute to a late-career renaissance for this most singular of artistes.
Jessica Lee (MRes 2009) has a Combined Honours degree in Contemporary Studies and International Development from the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her research interests include urban and domestic aesthetics, phenomenology, and Heidegger’s notions of ‘dwelling’ and ‘cultivation’. Her current work is concerned with the cultivation of the Home and its relation to sustainable urban development.
Jee Eun Lee (MRes 2003) BFA BArch RISD Providence, USA. Jee eun Lee co-founded dlm architectural designers ltd in London in February 2000. The work of dlm is firmly rooted in an interdisciplinary contemporary condition, which seeks to integrate architectural thought with the dynamics and methodologies of art, fashion and other cultural agents. Recent project includes a house in Jona, Switzerland and the development of a material technology called Curvatex. Other projects include an exhibition design for the British Council’s fabric of fashion exhibition and furniture designs. Previously, Lee worked as an architect for the office of Zaha Hadid where she contributed to various projects and competitions including contemporary art centres in Rome and Cincinnati. Other projects include l.a.Eyeworks flagship store in Los Angeles and a film set. Lee is also involved as a visiting critic at the Architectural Association.
Noam Leshem (PhD 2010) is a graduate of the Department for Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Leshem is a Wingate Scholar and his current research investigates the ability of land and cityscapes to retain histories that have otherwise been suppressed or excluded, focusing on the context of Israel and Palestine. Through an ‘archeology of the surface’, Leshem presents a new spatial history that challenges the conventions of historiography, political division and the experiential significance of space. Leshem has previously worked with Amnesty International, the Israeli Palestinian Center for Research and various other NGOs. Parts of Leshem’s work on memory activism in Israel will be published in The Politics of Cultural Memory
Pei Yi Lu is a curator from Taipei, Taiwan. She received her MA degree in Museology and BA degree in Chinese Literature in Taiwan. She has worked in several different art institutions including as curator at Fubon Art Foundations, as an independent curator and as a project manager in private galleries. Her curating experiences include: curator, Random-ize Taipei, International video art exhibition, Taipei East, 13 sites; co-curator, ‘Very Fun Park: Contemporary Art in East Taipei’, East Taipei, 30 sites, 2001. In 2003, Pei Yi took part in a curator residency program in Sydney provided by the Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs and Australian China Council. Pei Yi also regularly contributes articles to art magazines such as ARTCO and Artist.
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Eva MacGillivray Heath (MRes 2002) graduated from The University of California at Berkeley in 1998 with a degree in Comparative Literature. Her research focused on postcolonial literature, the Harlem Renaissance and controlling processes. Eva’s work experience includes marketing and public relations for publishing, high technology, film and the performing arts. Since graduating from the Consortium Eva has been working at the San Francisco Opera.
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Helen Mallinson (PhD 2009) is a principal lecturer in history and theory at the school of architecture and spatial design, London Metropolitan University. She is researching the topic of air in seventeenth century history of science and philosophy.
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Thomas Mansell studied English at Clare College, Cambridge, and Anglo-Irish Literature at Trinity College, Dublin. He is researching Samuel Beckett’s ambivalent relationship with music, particularly as experienced through the piano. He has spoken at several conferences, the most recent being ‘Beckett’s Proust/Deleuze’s Proust’ (Cardiff, March 2006), and has published in journals such as Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, the Beckett Circle, Performance Research, and the Yearbook of English Studies. He is a contributor to the Rodopi volume Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, edited by Mark Byron, and assisted with the organisation of Beckett and Company (Tate Modern and Goldsmiths, London, October 2006), part of the Beckett centenary celebrations.
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Delaney Martin (MRes 2001) graduated from the University of Southern California with a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing with a minor in Film. Since then she has pursued a career in photography. Since finishing her MRes she has been pursuing a career in the fine arts making large scale multi- media installations.
Richard Martin (PhD 2011) joined the London Consortium after two years as an advisor at the government’s architecture and urban design agency CABE. He has a BA in English and American Studies from the University of Manchester and an MA in English from University College London. His doctoral thesis, entitled The Architecture of David Lynch, was supported by an AHRC award, and is now being adapted for publication. Richard organised the 2009 international symposium on Lynch at Tate Modern, where he continues to teach public courses on art, architecture, cinema, literature and psychoanalysis. He has also taught poetry, literary theory and photography at Birkbeck, and is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Middlesex University
Ross McElwain read English Literature at Cambridge University, graduating in 2005. He then spent a year in Berlin studying peripatetically, writing, making DV shorts and discovering German theatre traditions and the films of John Cassavetes. His interests are mainly in Beckett (on whom his Master’s research will focus), Chris Marker, Nabokov, Kafka and ‘pataphysics.
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Colette Meacher (PhD 2007) BA (Social Anthropology), MA (Anthropology of Art). Pre-Consortium: Artist in Residence, photography teacher/ curator, Lecturer in Cultural Studies (Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia). Her PhD, ‘The Fugitive and the Infinite: Tracing the Sublime in the Contemporary Landscape’, explores peripatetic modes of the sublime in the works of the Romantics, Aragon and Beckett. During her studies, Colette worked as Director of Talks at the ICA, as well as for Frieze Art Fair, Artangel and Somerset House. Colette submitted her PhD in 2005 and now works as a freelance writer, journalist and curator. Publications include interviews with Jock McFadyen (Room 5 journal), Iain Sinclair (Literary London journal) and Stella Vine (Latest Art Magazine), commissioned writing for a-n magazine and contributions to Surface Tension: Problematics of Site (Errant Bodies Press) and Occasional Sights: a guidebook of missed opportunities and things that aren’t always there (Photographer’s Gallery Press). Colette is currently Features Editor of Latest Art Magazine, co-curator of a conference/ events on the sublime for Tate Britain (2007) and part of the chorus-line for the Busby Berkeley-inspired Bicycle Ballet taking place on Brighton seafront in September. http://latest-art.co.uk.
Wissam Mansour (PhD 2009) is an architect; he has practiced and taught architecture in Beirut and in London. His research at the London Consortium investigates contemporary design techniques -scenario, simulation and kinematics- and the effect of these techniques on the communication between the creative imaginary in digital design processes and their corresponding emergent aesthetic.
Markus Miessen (*1978) is an architect, writer and consultant migrating between Berlin, London, and the Middle East. In 2002, he set up Studio Miessen, a collaborative agency for spatial practice and cultural analysis, and in 2007 was founding partner of the Berlin-based architectural practice nOffice. In various collaborations, Miessen has published books such as East Coast Europe (Sternberg, 2008), The Violence of Participation (Sternberg, 2007), With/Without -Spatial Products, Practices and Politics in the Middle East (Bidoun, 2007), Did Someone Say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice (MIT Press, 2006) and Spaces of Uncertainty (Müller+Busmann, 2002). He frequently contributes to magazines and journals. His work has been exhibited and published widely, including at the Lyon, Venice, and Shenzhen Biennials. Miessen has taught and lectured internationally at institutions such as the Architectural Association (AA), Columbia and MIT. He has consulted the Slovenian Consulate (NYC) during Slovenia’s presidency of the EU council, the European Kunsthalle, the Serpentine Gallery and the Swiss think tank W.I.R.E.; in 2008, he initiated and now directs the AA Winter School Middle East (Dubai); Miessen is a Harvard fellow, PhD candidate at Goldsmiths, and a Visiting Professor at the Berlage Institute, Rotterdam. www.studiomiessen.com www.nOffice.eu
Toni Moceri (MRes 2006) graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts in American Culture and Anthropology. Over the past three years, she has received several commissions from the Shrinking Cities project to research different topics related to the shrinking phenomena in the City of Detroit. For two of those years, she also worked as a Policy and Benefits Intern at the International Union, UAW in Detroit, Michigan. Most recently, she was a participant in the Bauhaus Kolleg, a one-year interdisciplinary postgraduate program in urbanism at the historic Bauhaus building in Dessau, Germany. She is interested in the affect of economic development and public policy on the culture and quality of living within communities. As a student at the London Consortium, she would like to explore the ways in which educational interventions in the built environment could create value where it would otherwise not exist. Specifically, she would like to focus on suburbia and its distinct issues related to memory, locality and civics.
Robin Monotti Graziadei is a tutor in architectural design at London Metropolitan University and Greenwich University. He opened his architectural practice in 2005, and in 2007 he published the first translation of Malaparte’s book of short stories entitled “Woman Like Me”.
David Morgan (PhD 2000) undertook a thesis exploring the aesthetic and theoretical implications of the transition from pre-photographic to photographic visual media within the British popular press – as well as an attempt to initiate a full historical treatment of pre-photographic visual media within British popular literature (still a surprisingly neglected area). Since graduating from the Consortium, he has become involved in adult education. He is currently teaching art and architectural history for students of the Continuing Education Faculties at City University, in London, and for the University of Essex – as well as the equivalent faculties at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He is also currently pursuing contacts with (various) publishers with a view to eventually publishing his thesis.
James Morgan (MRes 2005) has a BA in Fine Art (Painting) from the National Art Scool, Sydney, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Art Conservation from the University of Melbourne. Among his many interests are: the role of empathy in art; the aesthetisation of food; the comforting properties of melancholy; and tensions between ethics and aesthetics. His MRes dissertation will be on contemporary art and democracy.
Mark Morris (PhD 2004) teaches architectural design, history and theory. Winner of an AIA Medal for Excellence in the Study of Architecture, he trained at the Ohio State University and took his doctorate at the London Consortium supported by a Royal Institute of British Architects grant. He previously taught at the Bartlett, Architectural Association and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. As a Consortium Research Fellow, he helped organise a summer school program at Tate Modern examining aspects of urban imagery and infrastructure with Kathy Battista and John Tercier. Mark’s essays have featured in several art and architecture periodicals including Frieze, Contemporary, Cabinet, AD and Domus. He is author of Models: Architecture and the Miniature (Wiley, 2006), Automatic Architecture: Designs from the Fourth Dimension (Globally Boundless, 2006), and hosts the iTunes podcast series, ‘Architecture on Air’. His research focuses on architectural models, scale and questions of representation. Other research interests include edible architecture, narrative, music as heuristic device and cycloramas. He is Director of Graduate Studies in the Field of Architecture at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning.
Richard Mosse (MRes 2003) Born 1980, the Republic of Ireland. Richard Mosse is currently pursuing his MFA in photography at Yale School of Art (2008). He received a first class BA in English Literature from Kings College London (2001), an MRes in Cultural Studies and Humanities from the London Consortium (2003), and a Postgraduate Diploma in fine art from Goldsmiths (2005) with AHRB funding. Richard has shown work in the UK, USA, and Spain. His work has been exhibited at Tate Modern and Phillips de Pury. It has been featured in Art Review, Lapiz, The Observer, and C International Photography Magazine. www.richardmosse.com
Maria Nicolacopoulou (MRes 2004) graduated from the Moraitis School, in Athens, and pursued further education in New York, where following two years of Fine Art studies with Honors, she decided to commit to a Philosophy and Art History degree at the City College of New York. This B.A in collaboration with three years of managing an Art Gallery, lead her to pursue a postgraduate degree in Humanities and Cultural Studies in order to expand her options and direct herself to career opportunities of a deeper cultural nature, which include teaching and cultural policy issues. Her research interests entail the cultural and philosophical consequences of religion’s presence in art, the use of art for humanitarian purposes and she is currently working as a freelance lecturer for Tate Modern, as well as exhibition journalist for Paris-based http://www.artsgate.net/. Her latest projects include authentication research for Sothebys Impressionist & Modern Art Department and curating an exhibition for Daylight Arts Foundation, Inc., who strive to use photography and the dissemination of imagery to empower people within communities and promote long-lasting change.
Aoife O’Brien (MRes 2002) graduated in June 2000 from Sheffield Hallam University with a BA in Fine Art, having shown work in England, France and the Netherlands. After working in PR in London and for the UN in Geneva she joined the Consortium in 2001. Currently, Aoife works as a Curator with Artwise and is a freelance critic for several publications.
Emer O’Brien is an artist and photographer. Her highly distinctive images combine the flattery of a portrait with the honesty of a news snap, the mess and grandeur of a landscape with the formalism of a blue print. Since 2003 she has been observing man’s impact on the environment. Emer’s research will take the practice of ’swailing’ - a land management technique of controlled burning - as its subject, using this to explore notions of metamorphosis of the environment and space management.
Richard Osborne has a BA in English Literature and History from the College of St Paul and St Mary and an MA in Popular Culture from the Open University. His PhD at the Consortium was on vinyl and shellac records.
Nina Papazoglou (MRes 2005) studied International Politics in Thessalonica (BA) and Brussels (MA). Nina is currently working on a funded PhD on curation at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has worked for the audiovisual archive collection and the department of Performance and New Media at the ICA, London. Nina is currently collaborating with the Greek national TV channel ET3, for a series of short documentaries on subjects related to art, architecture and the notion of metropolis culture. General research interests include violence as aesthetic medium, artists and political expression, fashion and style in contemporary art.
Imogen Parker (MRes 2007) has recently finished a BA in Music at Oxford University. Having had intensive exposure to practical music, performing and studying piano and clarinet at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, organ at the International Organ Conservatoire and working as musical director of the Mary Somerville Choir, three years of ‘academic’ music left her with a distrust, or rather, curiosity about the division of music as praxis, as aesthetic object and as (often somewhat sterile) academic discipline. Her final year allowed her to develop these ideas, bringing postmodernism into dialogue with music, and she looks forward to expanding these ideas with reference to the other arts.
Richard Parry (Mres 2005) wrote his dissertation on the 1951 Festival of Britain, exploring its significance as a cultural and architectural event and its impact on the formation of the South Bank.. He now works for the international touring exhibitions department of the British Council.
Nina Pearlman (PhD 2006) gained her MA from the Slade School of Fine Art before completing her PhD at the London Consortium. Her interdisciplinary doctoral research centres on art and the public sphere with particular focus on issues surrounding the administration of art and the regulation of its visibility as well as Kantian aesthetics. As curator she was part of the first curatorial team of imagine art after, an international multi-stage project with artists that involves commissioning of new work and exhibition at Tate Britain. With professional experience in the commercial gallery sector as well as in business development in the online publishing sector, she has worked as an independent consultant to artists and other cultural practitioners as well as research centres in the UK in areas such as audience development and marketing and has delivered courses based on this expertise. Pearlman has lectured on and taught a range of subjects at leading national and international institutions including University of Westminster, City University, the London Consortium and Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Recent publications include ‘Rethinking Public Art: A Kantian Critique’ in Public, 20th anniversary issue, 2008. She currently manages UCL Art Collections at University College London.
Barbara Penner (PhD 2003) is a Lecturer in Architectural History at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Her work consists of interdisciplinary investigations of the intersections between public space, architecture and private lives. She completed her PhD, “Alone at Last: Honeymooning in America, 1820-80,” at the Consortium in 2003. Her essays have been published in edited collections and scholarly journals, most recently in Architecture and Tourism: Perception, Performance and Place (2004) and Negotiating Domesticity (2005). With Jane Rendell and Iain Borden, she edited Gender, Space Architecture (2000).
Sandra Plummer (PhD 2010) is an artist and writer from Ireland who studied Fine Art at Middlesex University. Her PhD research addresses the ontology of the photograph in contemporary art. She is interested in art that engages with the materiality or process of photography itself. The work of Gilles Deleuze informs her research on the theory and philosophy of photography. She has contributed to the Consortium journal Static and has written on the artist Vik Muniz in Textile:The Journal of Cloth and Culture. She is a member of the Consortium/Middlesex University research group organising a conference at Tate Britain on the sublime in October 2007.
Clare Pollard (MRes 2005) wrote a dissertation on ‘Anne Sexton, the Cold War, and the Idea of the Housewife.’ She has three collections of poetry published by Bloodaxe, and is writing her second play for The Royal Court, ‘The Zoo Keeper’s Wife.’ She edits Reactions magazine.
Charles Rice (MRes 1998) is Lecturer in the Architecture Program at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He has also taught in Histories and Theories and General Studies at the Architectural Association. His PhD (UNSW, 2003) investigated the historical emergence of the bourgeois domestic interior, and the theoretical issues surrounding its inhabitation. His work also looks at the contemporary mediatisation of the interior and the city, and the fate of the concept of experience in the twentieth century. He is co-editor, with Barbara Penner, of Constructing the Interior, a special issue of The Journal of Architecture (2004), and his work on the interior appears in the anthologies Negotiating Domesticity: Spatial Productions of Gender in Modern Architecture (Routledge, 2005), Walter Benjamin and History (Continuum, 2005), and Walter Benjamin: Métropole et Modernité (Editions de l’Eclat, 2005). He has also published articles in Archis, Architectural Design, Architectural Theory Review and Critical Quarterly. A book entitled Inhabiting the Doubled Interior: Architecture and Bourgeois Domesticity is forthcoming from Routledge.
Martine Rouleau (PhD 2009) completed a Masters in Communication at the Université du Québec à Montréal focusing on the reception of documentary photography. Her Ph.D. research, has evolved towards an interest in the roles and responsibilities of the museum. Taking a specific interest in marginal reactions and approaches to art that happen within the museum, Martine wishes to question the idea of aesthetics that pervades the institution and to investigate alternatives. Martine is a tutor at Westminster Adult Education Service, contributes to critical arts magazines as a freelance writer and book reviewer and is founding co-editor of the Static website, a web resource for an interdisciplinary study of the contemporary culture. Martine holds the Tate-Consortium studentship, as part of which she is organizing the ongoing series of talks The Philosophy of the Overlooked at the ICA.
Jane Rowley (MRes 2006) came to The London Consortium from Denmark, where she has worked as a film and art video director, curator and translator. Her current research interest in is the use of lost/found images – family snaps and home movies - in contemporary art from a political, aesthetic, ethical and curatorial perspective. Her broader research interests include gender theory, memory and lens-based media, and she is currently co-curating the London found footage event ‘Little Bits of History Repeating’.
Joey Rubin was born in New York and raised in California. As a journalist and writer, his essays and reviews have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Nerve.com, Paste, and The Forward. His short fiction, “Toward Lithuania,” is forthcoming in Promised Lands: New Jewish Fiction on Longing and Belonging. He holds a B.A. in Literature from Reed College, Portland, Oregon and last lived as an itinerant English teacher in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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Barney Samson (MRes 2009-10) is an east Londoner who studied Music at Girton College, Cambridge. His undergraduate dissertations were an examination of genre in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, and a study on the relationship between musical preferences and the classical canon (‘Is it because I is Bach?’). Since graduation he has worked as a musician, researcher and schools workshop leader, and as Artistic Administrator of the Roald Dahl Music Commissions. He loves Tottenham Hotspur and doesn’t understand the popularity of Michael McIntyre.
Eliana Sousa Santos is an architect with practice within architecture the expanded fields of landscape, sculpture and design. She did her undergraduate studies at FAUTL Lisbon, graduate studies at DARQ FCTUC Coimbra, has worked within the team of West 8 and presently works as an independent architect. Her PhD concerned the ‘desire for landscape’ that can be found in contemporary artistic and architectural practice.
Aviva Schultz completed her BA degree in Playwrighting and Theatrical Performance at Mills College in 1994. During her undergraduate career she wrote, directed and produced several one act plays. She has also completed a certificate program in stage performance at RADA. In 1999, Aviva recieved an MA/MFA degree in Writing and Consciousness from New College of California. At the same time she finished work on a collection of experimental prose pieces which is currently being considered for publication. Aviva continues to write and perform her work at various venues. Aviva has taught English and creative writing internationally, most recently, spending a year teaching secondary and university level English in The Czech Republic. Aviva’s research will focus primarily on the role of otherness in contemporary society. She hopes to focus her research particularly on the discourse of difference and the intrinsic function of the outsider in current artistic trends.
Aaron Schuman (MRes 2003) is an American photographer, editor, lecturer and critic, currently based in the United Kingdom. He received a B.F.A. in Photography and History of Art from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1999, and an MRes in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the University of London’s London Consortium in 2003. Having assisted various photographers - most notably, Annie Leibovitz and Wolfgang Tillmans - Aaron began to pursue his own freelance career in 2000. Since then, he has exhibited his photographic work internationally, and has been featured in publications such as Aperture, ArtReview, Modern Painters, HotShoe, Creative Review, The Face, DayFour, the RIBA Journal, The Guardian, The Observer and The Sunday Times. In 2002, he was one of six photographers to be shortlisted for The Times Young Photographer of the Year Award; and in 2004, he received a GSE grant from Rotary International to photograph in Karnataka, India. Aaron is on the director’s board of the UK-based photography organization, PhotoDebut (photodebut.org), and is a member of the international photography collective, Young Photographers United (ypu.org). He is also a Lecturer in Photography at both the Arts Institute at Bournemouth and the University of Brighton, and is the founder, director and editor of the online photography journal, SeeSaw Magazine (www.seesawmagazine.com).
Lee Scrivner (PhD 2010) received a BA (1997) and an MA (1998) in English Literature from the University of Utah, and taught literature and composition at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2001 to 2005) and the College of Southern Nevada (1999 to 2001). His PhD thesis at the London Consortium, ‘Modern Insomnia: Vicious Circles and Paradoxes of Attention and Will, 1860-1910′, was awarded in March 2011. In February, 2008, he appeared on the ‘History of Insomnia’ panel for the Wellcome Centre’s Sleeping and Dreaming exhibition. Also, as the writer of ‘How to Write an Avant-Garde Manifesto,’ he appeared as a panelist in the ‘A Slap in the Face of Public Taste: The Art of Manifestos’ debate at the British Library’s Breaking the Rules exhibition (February, 2008). His poetry has appeared in The Wolf and Poet Lore, and has been set to music and performed at Wigmore Hall, London (Voiceworks, March 2007). In 2007, he taught courses on ‘The Aphoristic’ and ‘The Production of the Human’, for the English department at Birkbeck, and since 2010 has been Fulbright Lecturer in the Humanities at Bo?aziçi University in Istanbul.
Emilia Serra (MRes 2005) “The Acropolis of Athens could just be called the perfect example of one of the most ancient films.” S. Eisenstein. Her research investigates the connessions between architecture and visual art by analysing their use of ’sequence’ and ‘montage’ and, having widened the dominant visual perception to all the other senses involved, by exploring all the different feelings evocated in the space of memory during their perception. Her other main interest is community-based art.
Arturo Serrano (PhD 2008) is currently a researcher at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, Venezuela. He also teaches Film History and a Seminar on the Cinema of Quentin Tarantino and another one on the cinema of Martin Scorsese. He directed a short film in 1999 called “A Lesson in Aesthetics”. He writes on cinema in many magazines and is now working on a book on Quentin Tarantino.
Henneke Sharif’s (MRes 2005) research concerned the relationship between politics, culture and society, focusing on the problem of the public realm, using the Royal Society of Arts as her case study.
Luke Skrebowski (MRes 2005) is pursuing research into the interaction of art, media and technology, 1966-71, with a focus on the theoretical work of Jack Burnham. He graduated from King’s College, Cambridge University, in 1999 and worked professionally in New Media as an Information Architect, 2001-2005
Luke Smith (MRes 2005) Digital Technology, Cultural Engagement and Emerging Institutions During nine years of working with telecommunications and the Internet I have become increasingly concerned with corporate visions for our present and future. My research will investigate engagement in a cultural context, particularly that facilitated by digital technology within emerging institutions, including: A rigorous examination of definitions and ethics of ‘cultural engagement’ and ‘cultural actor’, aiming to provide a firm rationale for the proceeding work; Case studies and other research investigating how institutions outside the traditional realms of ‘high culture’ (such as Artrocker, Reclaim the Streets, Urban Tapestries) are creating possibilities for cultural engagement; An examination of the nature of linked physical spaces and digital environments, in relation to cultural engagement; Proposals for patterns of cultural engagement suitable to be applied elsewhere, these patterns will include applications of digital technology. This is contingent on the hope and expectation that my research interests will develop during the MRes programme.u
Andrew Spooner (MRes 1998) After graduating from the Consortium Andrew Spooner has featured regularly in The Independent, The Guardian, CNN Traveller, The Observer, The Guardian, Jack and GQ as well as being the co-author to Footprint’s Thailand guide, the Rough Guide to Copenhagen and establishing himself as a broadcaster with both BBC Radio 5 and BBC London Live. The main focus of Andrew’s journalistic endeavour has been travel, with the Arctic a speciality, although he has written on everything from the Midnight Sun Film Festival (set in Lapland, Finland) through to the internet’s largest and most dangerous online game, Lineage, the bizarre world of Kobe beef, Dogme95 and Shinjuku, Tokyo - the inspiration for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and the setting for Lost in Translation. He’s attended the Arctic Winter Games in Nuuk, Greenland for The Observer Sports Monthly Magazine, getting into the final of the harpooning contest, learnt to freedive (diving with no airtank a la Luc Besson’s Big Blue) for The Independent on Sunday and can now hold his breath for over 4mins and reach depths of 80feet unassisted. Photography is also a rapidly developing area for Andrew and he has been published in the Independent, Guardian, Observer, Jack and Health &Fitness. In his spare time Andrew teaches journalist, media and advertising undergraduates at the University of East London. To view Andrew’s photographic and journalistic work please visit his website at www.andrewspooner.net.
Helen Stokes graduated from King’s College Cambridge in 2008 with a BA in French and Italian and moved swiftly to Rome. Here she worked as a PA to the producer at Radafilm, as a real-time ANSA news translator and as a switchboard operator at the European Space Agency. In May 2009 she was one of the photographers in the project ‘InBetween: 60 ore a Roma’, which was part of the Rome International Photography Festival. Helen’s research interests include the authenticity of sensorial experience. Helen is glad to hold an AHRC studentship award for 2009-2010.
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Constantine a.k.a Konstantinos Stefanis (PhD 2011) wrote his thesis on the emergence and development of the single-artist retrospective exhibition in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. Artists in Retrospect: The Rise and Rise of the Retrospective Exhibition explored a period of roughly a hundred years (1760-1867) and demonstrated the historical complexities of the nascent exhibition format. The retrospective, while it helped to portray and celebrate artistic authorship, functioned both as a marketing and sales tool by living artists and as an honorary device by institutions. During his time at the London Consortium Konstantinos was involved in organizing two conferences at Tate Modern (Shortness: a very short conference and a very long dinner and Take a Deep Breath), he was founding member and editor of Static and he helped organize part of the audiovisual collection of the ICA. He has worked as co-director of Betting on Shorts - International Short Film Festival and as a researcher and cataloguer at the Benaki Museum in Athens. Konstantinos also holds degrees in Art History from Goldsmiths College (MA) and from Camberwell College of Arts (BA Hons). His current research interests are in exhibition culture and collections, printed culture (esp. catalogues) and eighteenth-nineteenth century Europe. cstefanis [at] hotmail [dot] com
Ivor Stodolsky (MRes 1998) is currently Researcher of Russian culture and social theory at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland and curator of the GG St. Petersburg, Russia. He is engaged in what he informally calls “field research in philosophy”. In the early 90s he read Philosophy and Mathematics at Bristol University, worked in film in Germany and taught literature in Russia. His MRes thesis at the London Consortium, supervised with a light hand by Paul Hirst, dealt with what he characterised as “the Age of Poshlost’ “. In London he doubled as a Naked Poet and President of Birkbeck College’s Student Union. Back on the continent, he co-founded the “Art Fabrik” in Vienna and then moved on as an editor of “Fusion-Fission”, Linz and Vienna. Leaving the arts for his daughters, he worked out of Prague as Associate Editor of the international op-ed powerhouse www.project-syndicate.org, gaining experience in high real-politik. Field research on a model case of the aesthetico-political dissimulation of “poshlost’ “, however, led ever deeper into the former Leningrad “nonconformist underground” milieu. Investigations into its transformations under post-Soviet gangster-capitalism and restoration are ongoing. He currently lives and works between Helsinki and St. Petersburg.
Eleanor Street (MRes 2006) graduated from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2004 with a BA in the History of Art. Since then she studied at Charles Cecil art school in Florence. Eleanor was an intern at the ICA, on her return, assisting on the education and outreach programmes while also gaining pratical experience in the gallery space setting up exhibitions alongside the curators and artists. Eleanor’s research is driven by the need to discover the inter-relation of the arts to society. Her interests lie in the question of the split personality in art, music and literature around the turn of the twentieth century, in particular in conjunction with the rise of psychoanalysis. Eleanor also wishes to investigate the notion of narrative in contemporary art in connection with the decomposition of narrative in the macrocosm of societal change.
Matthew Taunton (PhD 2008) is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of English at Queen Mary, University of London. His research project focuses on responses to the Russian Revolution among the British literary intelligentsia, and will be a broad ranging study of the relations between literature, politics and the press in the modernist period. His PhD at the London Consortium examined literary and cinematic representations of mass housing in London and Paris, and formed the basis of his first book, entitled Fictions of the City: Class, Culture and Mass Housing in London and Paris (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). He was a major contributor to the Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism (British Library, 2009), and is Associate Editor of Critical Quarterly. He has taught English Literature at UCL, Birkbeck and Goldsmiths, Media History at Central St. Martins, and Humanities at the Open University. He contributes regularly to the Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman.
Nick Telford (MRes 2001) is a researcher and photographer. He has a BA and MSc from the University of Stirling and studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara on exchange. Among his many interests are cats and DIY. Currently, he is completing freelance research projects in the international marketing of cultural enterprises.
John Tercier (PhD 2003) B.Sc., M.D., F.R.C.P. (C) is a specialist in emergency medicine. He was founding editor of the Consortium journal, Room 5. His thesis and now recently published book The Contemporary Deathbed: The Ultimate Rush is a cultural history of resuscitative protocols. He is working at present on the interface between medicine and media. He is the Samuel Hahnemann Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco
Fabrizio Trifirò (PhD 2003) is currently holding a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin, with a research project on global civil society, global governance and transnational democracy. He obtained his PhD in Political Philosophy at the London Consortium, Birkbeck College, in January 2003, with a thesis supervised by the late Paul Hirst titled ‘Anti-foundationalism and Liberalism’. He obtained his MA in Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention in Januray 2003 at the University of Bologna with a dissertation titled ‘Anti-foundationalism, Deliberative Democracy and Human Rights’. He graduated in Philosophy (first with honours) at the University of Bologna, with a thesis on the neo-pragmatism of Richard Rorty. In 2004 he has been research assistant for War on Want, a London based NGO working to fight against the root causes of global poverty and in defence of labour rights; and in 2003 research assistant for Terre des Hommes International, an European Network of NGOs working in the field of children rights, in its EU liasion office in Brussels. He is co-ordinator of save-democracy.net, an independent organization of European citizens aimed at raising awareness on the violations of the rights to freedom of expression and information by the current Italian governement, and on the issue of pluralism of the media in Europe in general.
Peter Thornton (PhD 2011) grew up in Japan, and attended a school in Yokohama until 18. Then he attended from Columbia College and graduated in ‘98. He did a double major in English and in East Asian Studies, particularly focusing on Japanese literature for the latter. During his four years in school, he spent one semester abroad, in the English department at UCL in London. After graduation, he worked at a Wall Street law firm working in the field of Securitization Law, then returned to Columbia for a Masters in Japanese Literature. His PhD thesis (2011) was entitled Auditory Culture in the Early Showa Period’.
Wojciech Trzcinski (MRes 2005) Research interest: - contemporary theatre in Europe; - playwrighting in Eastern and Western Europe after 1990; comparison studies; - aspect of drama as a medium reflecting social and cultural changes; - representation of the young generation of new¹ European citizens in the Eastern Europe playwrighting; - dealing¹ with the Communist past in Eastern European playwrighting after 1990;Personal interest: - contemporary art, media: film studies, European cinema, philology.
Chris Turner (PhD 2000) read Anthropology, Archaeology and Art History at Cambridge University. He went on to complete his PhD - on the cultural history of disgust - at the London Consortium, where he subsequently helped teach a module. He is an editor of Cabinet magazine and is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, the Sunday Telegraph and the Guardian. From 2003-2004 he was a visiting scholar at Columbia University and worked as a consultant on David Hare’s play, Stuff Happens. His Adventure in the Orgasmatron: How the secual revolution came to America is forthcoming from HarperCollins in the UK and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US.
Inga Untiks (MRes 2001) graduated from York University with a BA Hons in English Literature and the Humanities, and gained an MRes at the London Consortium (2001). Her current research focuses on the contemporary art developments in Baltic Europe in the 1990s with particular attention paid to the changing infrastructure. She has curated a number of small photography exhibitions in Europe and North America and continues to publish articles in major music magazines. Currently, she is developing a documentary film on open-air sculpture parks in the Nordic region and works at Tate Britain.
Kostis Velonis (MRes 2000) is an artist. He studied Visual Arts at the Paris VIII University, (Maitrise, D.E.A, 1997) and Cultural Studies (MRes) at the London Consortium (Birkbeck College, ICA, AA, 2000). He is now a phd candidate (architecture) at the N.T.U.A University of Athens.
Bernard Vere (PhD 2006) is Lecturer in Fine Arts at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. His PhD was titled ‘Two Steps Forward … The Faltering Progress of the Avant-Garde in England, 1909-1939′. He also graduated with distinction from the Consortium MRes in 2001. Bernard has an MA from Nottingham University in Critical Theory and a BA from UEA in Literature and Philosophy. A chapter from his thesis appeared in Visual Culture in Britain in summer 2006. He has had review articles and reviews published in Textual Practice, New Formations and Contemporary magazine and edited Eyeing London, the third in the Consortium’s Room 5 series. Prior to working for Sotheby’s, Bernard taught for Birkbeck, London Metropolitan and Tate (with Ricarda Vidal).
Ricarda Vidal (PhD submitted 2006) studied English and German literature and Medieval Studies in Regensburg, Munich, Norwich and Edinburgh before moving to Sevilla and later Barcelona. In 2002 she joined the Consortium where she is researching 20th century car culture and the obsession with speed. She works as a lecturer and translator and has organised several events at the ICA and Tate Modern, including several international conferences, artist talks and film screenings.
Cesar Villareal was born in Mexico City in 1968. He studied Architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana from 1987 to 1992 where he graduated with an Honours Distinction for his dissertation “Overlapped Cities”. In 1990 he joined TEN Arquitectos and in 1994 he set a practice of his own, TallerUNO, in Mexico City. He won a scholarship from the Mexican Government to pursue graduate studies at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Here, he completed the Design Research Laboratory Masters in Architecture programme with the presentation of the “Urban Resort” project in January 2002. He recently founded Sociedad Anonima, an open group of people from diverse backgrounds that researches urban and architectural issues. In September 2002 he was granted a scholarship to join the PhD programme at the London Consortium.
Mathilde Villeneuve (MRes 2005) I would like to focus my research on the tendency of contemporary art to create a new intimate relationship with the spectator.
Andreas Vrahimis (PhD, 2011) received a BA in Philosophy from Nottingham University and an MA in Interactive Media: Critical Theory and Practice from Goldsmiths College. His PhD research examined the ways in which the increasing participation of philosophy in interdisciplinary studies affects meta-philosophical discourse and methodology. His research interests include the split between Analytical and Continental philosophy, the Pragmatists’ project of laboratory philosophy, interdisciplinary fields such as Cognitive Science, Media Theory and Cybernetics, and Ancient philosophy (with a passion for the pre-Socratics). Andreas worked on the project of archiving cultural production in Cyprus, conducting interviews with cultural producers and organizing related events. He also plays with sound, audiovisual and interactive works in various projects (see also vybbtuan, Tramba Audiovisual Conspiracy).
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Gary Walker (MRes 2003) received an honours degree in English literature and modern drama from the West London Institute, (now Brunel University) in 1988. Shortly after, he helped start up an independent record label called Wiiija Records in conjunction with the Rough Trade record shop. He ran Wiiija for over ten years, working with many alternative artists, including Le Tigre and the Anglo-Asian group Cornershop. His research examined the production of popular music as self taught artistic expression, and its social context. On completing his Mres, he spent a year as live music programmer at the ICA, and has since worked for both Rough Trade and Domino record labels.
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Nick Ward has a BA in Film Production in 2009 from the University for the Creative Arts, where he specialized in film directing and producing. He is also an independent film maker, experimenting with the ‘essay’ form. His research at the Consortium is interested in the revival of the personal and familiar essayist in both film and literature, as a second class citizen, a gardener for the love of it, and an amateur in a world of professionals.
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Eyal Weizman (PhD 2006) is an architect. He is a professor of architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and the director of Goldsmiths College’s Centre of Architectural Research. Throughout his studies at the AA in London (1993-1998), he worked with Zvi Hecker in Berlin and did projects in partnership with him. He set up his private practice with Rafi Segal in 1999. Their projects included the rebuilding of the Ashdod Museum of Art (opened in June 2003), a stage-set for Itim Theatre Company (premiered at the Lincoln Centre in July 2003), a runner up proposal for the Tel Aviv Museum competition and other projects. Together with the human-rights organization B’tselem, Eyal initiated a report on violations of human-rights and international humanitarian law through the use of architecture and planning titled Land Grab. The map produced alongside this report was the first of its kind to represent the nature of planning and the formal dimension of the Israeli Occupation, and is currently widely used by NGOs and international organizations. The exhibition and the publication A Civilian Occupation, The Politics of Israeli Architecture he co-edited/curated was based on this human-rights research. These projects were banned by the Israeli Association of Architects, but later shown at the Storefront Gallery for Art and Architecture in New York (February 2003), in Territories at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin (May 2003), and ever-updated versions of the ongoing project at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam (November 2003), at Berkeley University in San Francisco (March 2004), at the Konsthal in Malmoe (May 2004), and at the Betzalel gallery in Tel Aviv. Eyal taught architecture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna (1998-1999), at the Technion School of Architecture and Planning in Haifa (1999-2000) and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London (2000-2002), before becoming a professor for habitat at the architecture department at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. He lectured in many other schools of arts and architecture world wide. His research The Politics of Verticality is a basis for a documentary film and a book to be published in 2006. Already published are the books: Yellow Rhythms (010Publishers Rotterdam, 2000), three co-edited catalogues for the exhibition Territories (May 2003, November 2003, May 2004), A Civilian Occupation (Verso, London, 2003) and articles in magazines and books. Eyal is now a contributing editor for Domus magazine (Milano) and for Cabinet Magazine (New York).
Steve Wheeler (PhD 2007) graduated from Magdalen College, Oxford in 2000 with a First in English Language and Literature, and gained his MRes from the London Consortium in 2002. His thesis focuses on theories of cultural complexity and development in Oswald Spengler’s “Decline of the West”, and seeks to provide a contemporary re-appraisal of the work. Other research interests include mythography, counter-cultures and alternative paradigms of the body.
Jessica White grew up on a property outside Boggabri (pop. 1000) in rural Australia. She graduated with a double Honours degree in English and Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong, then a Masters in Writing from the University of Technology, Sydney. Influenced by her own experiences as an Australian 10 000 miles from home, her PhD investigates the themes of writing, death and distance. Using fictocriticism to draw her readers closer, it delves into the correspondence of 19th Century botanist Georgiana Molloy, whose passion for flowers enabled a peculiarly intimate relationship with Captain James Mangles, and into the archives and novels of 19th Century spiritualist Rosa Praed, whose experience as an expatriate Australian facilitated her communications with the dead. A Curious Intimacy, Jessica’s novel about love, lesbianism and botany in 19th Century Western Australia, was published by Penguin in Australia in January 2007 and will be reprinted in February 2008.
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Matthew Wraith (PhD 2011) studied English Literature at Glasgow University graduating in 2002. He went on to do a Masters in Modern and Contemporary English Literature at Birkbeck, writing his dissertation on Waste in Modernism under the supervision of Steven Connor. He also worked for Roger Graef’s documentary production company Films of Record. He has taught English in the Basque Country, Istanbul and, most recently, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. At the consortium, he is writing about the phenomenology of 20th Century urban experience, looking at the how the city engages the different bodily senses and how they relate to theories of consciousness, the mind and the brain – the mind in the city and the mind as a city. He views the sensations of city life not through the customary notions of sensory overload but through less common notions of sensory restriction and prohibition: untouchability, deafness, blindness and visual limitation generally. He would like to examine these ideas through a range of twentieth century philosophy, literature and film. He has recently been offered the chance to pursue the last of these further through working as a researcher for a Film London documentary biopic of Derek Jarman.
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Lauren A. Wright (PhD 2010) studied art history at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Her doctoral research at the London Consortium investigates the spectatorial encounter with contemporary art as a process of negotiation with time. Additionally, Lauren’s writing has recently appeared in such publications as Mute and caareviews.org, and she is a lecturer on the MA in Arts Policy and Management at Birkbeck, University of London, where she will also be Academic Advisor for the 08’-09’ year. She is a core member of Furtherfield.org, an Arts Council England-funded media arts platform based in North London, and is co-curator of its gallery, HTTP. She was also part of a team of organizers for NODE.London, an organisation working to expand participation in the media arts in London while developing new models for organisational practice. Lauren is also a practicing independent curator, with projects including Sleep: Warhol/Cage/Satie, a major performance to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of Andy Warhol, which took place at Tate Modern in May 2007. Lauren is a founding director of Consortium Projects.
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Vivian Yong (MRes 2005) is a jewellery designer and art director. She was born in Hong Kong and graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Journalism and Communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1999. After that, she worked as a copywriter and eventually became a senior copywriter in HK4A’s advertising agencies until 2003. She then joined the MRes in Humanities and Cultural Studies programme at the London Consortium. Interested in the inter-relation of body, senses and their visual presentations, her research topic was “The Perfume System and Mythologies of Aroma: a multi-disciplinary study on perfume advertising.” After completing her MRes, she worked as an assistant in a jewellery workshop in London for another year and further confirmed her passion in art, design and fashion. She is now a jewellery designer and art director in partnership with Oliver Poon (photographer) in Hong Kong – www.vivianandoliver.comup
