I am a Reader in Gender, Sexuality and Culture at Glasgow School of Art where I co-ordinate postgraduate research for the School of Fine Art and teach on undergraduate courses in Design, History and Theory (DH&T), specialising in the body and imaging technologies in design.
Before joining GSA in 2015, I held teaching positions in Fine Art Critical Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, University of the Creative Arts, and Manchester School of Art. I gained my PhD from the Manchester Institute of Research in Art and Design in 2016 and undertook postdoctoral research from 2016-18 on the HERA-funded project Cruising the Seventies: Unearthing Pre-HIV/AIDS Queer Sexual Cultures at University of Edinburgh. From 2018-21, I was Research Excellence Fellow in Art History at Newcastle Universimore...
I am a Reader in Gender, Sexuality and Culture at Glasgow School of Art where I co-ordinate postgraduate research for the School of Fine Art and teach on undergraduate courses in Design, History and Theory (DH&T), specialising in the body and imaging technologies in design.
Before joining GSA in 2015, I held teaching positions in Fine Art Critical Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, University of the Creative Arts, and Manchester School of Art. I gained my PhD from the Manchester Institute of Research in Art and Design in 2016 and undertook postdoctoral research from 2016-18 on the HERA-funded project Cruising the Seventies: Unearthing Pre-HIV/AIDS Queer Sexual Cultures at University of Edinburgh. From 2018-21, I was Research Excellence Fellow in Art History at Newcastle University. In 2019-20, I was the Honorary Fellow in Contemporary Art Theory and Curating at Edinburgh College of Art. In 2022, I was Affiliate Fellow in Art History and Critical Studies at the ICI, Berlin. I am currently Principle Investigator for 'Remapping the City of Culture through Grassroots LGBTQ+ Cultural Production' (2023/24), funded by a Carnegie Research Trust Research Incentive Grant.
My work focuses on interactions of art and photography with feminism and queer perspectives, gender and sexuality. My current book project is Desiring Pictures: Making Images Read as Lesbian. I am co-editor with Glyn Davis of Queer Print in Europe (Bloomsbury, 2022) and editor of Phyllis Christopher’s artist monograph Dark Room: San Francisco Sex and Politics, 1988-2003 (Book Works, 2022) which was nominated for the ParisPhoto/Aperture Foundation First PhotoBook Award. With Fiona Anderson, Flora Dunster, and Theo Gordon, I am currently editing a special issue of British Art Studies dedicated to Queer Art in Britain Since the 1980s. My research has been supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Paul Mellon Centre, the AHRC, and the Carnegie Trust. I have been invited to present my research internationally including by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York University, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Vienna’s University of Applied Arts, the Estonian Academy of the Arts, the V&A Museum, and the Courtauld Institute of Art.
My writing on art, design and culture for non-academic audiences has been published widely in artist monographs and arts magazines including by Walter Koenig, Sternberg and in Frieze, Camera Austria, Aperture, Photoworks, and Art Monthly. I have organised exhibitions and screenings internationally including in collaboration with TATE, LUX, the ICA, London, Archive, Berlin, and the Cantor Film Centre, New York. In 2021 I curated Phyllis Christopher's first major solo show 'Contacts' at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK. As part of the collective Radclyffe Hall I co-curated 'Deep Down Body Thirst' for Glasgow International (2018) and 'Hot Moment: Tessa Boffin, Ingrid Pollard and Jill Posener' at Auto Italia (2020).
Current research students:
Giulia Astesani
Cevahir Ozdogan
Sing Hang Tam
2016 PhD, Manchester Institute for Research in Art and Design, Manchester School of Art, MMU
2014 MA in Culture and Media Production, Vision Forum, Linkopings Universitet, Sweden
2012 MA in the Photographic Image, Durham University
2008 BA (hons) Photographic Arts, University of Westminster