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 art and design.

I currently teach on the following courses:
Year 1 Designed Objects: Fashion pathway
Year 2 Design History and Theory: Fashion pathway
Year 3 Design History and Theory: Concepts and Territories of Design
Year 3 Design History and Theory: The Body in Design
Year 4 Design History and Theory: Final project

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. Following a period working as a curator, 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.

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 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 writing on art, design and culture for non-academic audiences has been published widely in artist monographs and arts magazines. I have written on the work of many artists including Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Jamie Crewe, Zoe Leonard, Ellen Lesperance, Charlie Prodger and Margaret Salmon. My essays, interviews and criticism have been published 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).

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.

Current research students:

Please note, I am not currently receiving applications for prospective PhD supervision.

Giulia Astesani (Primary Supervisor)
Michael Collazo (Primary Supervisor)
Sing Hang Tam (Co-supervisor)
cevahir ozdogan (Co-supervisor)
Brooke Hailey Hoffert (Co-supervisor)