Sarah Smith
Sarah Smith
- Head of Research, The Glasgow School of Art
- ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9665-1849- Professional Title
- Professor of Visual Culture
- Job Title
- Head of Research, The Glasgow School of Art
- School or Academic Area
- School of Fine Art
- School or Academic Area Supervised for
- School of Fine Art
- SA.Smith@gsa.ac.uk
- Professional Address
- 164 Renfrew Street, Glasgow, G3 6RQ
Biography
Professor Sarah Smith is Head of Research and Professor of Visual Culture at The Glasgow School of Art. Sarah has a BA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (1994), an MA from University College Dublin (1995), and a PhD from University of Glasgow (2007). Her research expertise is in visual culture, with specialisms in artists’ moving image and feminist art. Sarah's research is published in peer reviewed journals such as Screen, Sculpture Journal and Feminist Media Studies. Her book, Artists' Moving Image: Cinema as Archive will be published by Bloomsbury in April 2026. Sarah supervises PhDs in artists moving image, experimental film and feminist art. She is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, the Irish Research Council and FCT (Portugal) Arts and Humanities Peer Review College, and a member of REF2021 and REF2029 Panel 32: Art and Design History, Practice and Theory.
Research Interests
artists' moving image; archival art; experimental film; feminist art; feminist film; cinema as archive; art and archives; sampling in art; art and cinema; artists' documentary.
Grants
Co-I for 'Scottish Cultural Policy Research Network,' funded by Scottish Universities Insight Institute (SUII), Jan-Sept 2023. Total: £15,565
PI for 'Developing and Promoting Sustainable Cultural Heritage in Disaster Contexts,' funded by UK-Ukraine R&I Twinning Grants Scheme (Research England/UUKi), Nov 2022-Sept 2023. Follow-on funding awarded in 2024. Total: £123,694.27 (£117,307.27, plus follow on funding: £6,387)
PGR Supervision Interests
I supervise PhDs in artists' moving image, feminist film, feminist art, experimental film, and art and archives.
Current PGR Students
Kelly Rappleye, Unsettling Spaces: Curating Artists’ Moving Image to Interrogate Colonial Legacies in Urban Space.' AHRC/SGSAH-funded PhD. 2022-2027
Rachael Kelly, Constructing an Audiovisual History of Irish Refugees and Immigrants in Scotland (1840s-1980s). AHRC/SGSAH-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA). 2024-2028
Former PGR Students
Dr Marcus Jack: Primary Supervisor. Title: Mapping a History of Artists’ Moving Image in Scotland), AHRC/SGSAH-funded studentship (2022)
Dr Danilo Barauna: Primary Supervisor. Title: Queer Phenomenology and Artist Moving Image Installations), CAPES, Brazilian Government Doctoral studentship (2022)
Dr Ren Garden, Primary Supervisor. Title: Sound of Violent Images / Violence of Sound Images, AHRC/SGSAH-funded studentship (2022)
Dr Laura Haynes: Co-supervision with Department of Creative Writing, University of Glasgow. Title: The Quick (2021)
Dr Lynda Devenney, 2017-2021, Primary Supervisor. Title: From Prop to Sculpture: The role of the object in artists’ moving image practices (2021)
Dr Dawn Worsley, 2014–2019, Primary Supervisor. Title: Three Burnt Books: An Unconventional Conservation Narrative) (2019)
Dr Aimee Mollaghan, Co-supervision with Department of Film and Television, University of Glasgow. Title: Visual Music in Experimental Film from the 1910s – 1970s (2011). This thesis was published in monograph form as The Visual Music Film (2015) by Palgrave.
Latest Additions
- Smith, Sarah (2026) Artists’ Moving Image: Cinema as Archive. Bloomsbury, London. ISBN HB: 978-1-7883-1398-8
- Neely, Sarah and Smith, Sarah (2019) The Art of Maximal Ventriloquy: Femininity as Labour in the Films of Rachel Maclean. In: Women Artists, Feminism and the Moving Image: Context and Practices. Bloomsbury Academic, London, pp. 165-177. ISBN 9781784537005
- Smith, Sarah (2017) Posing as Art: The Ambiguities of Feminist Body Art and the Misclassification of Natacha Merritt’s Pornographic Photographs. Feminist Media Studies, 17 (5). pp. 774-789. ISSN 1468-0777
- Smith, Sarah (2014) Norman McLaren: The Student Films (1933-36). The Glasgow School of Art, 3 May 2014
- Smith, Sarah (2014) The Art of Drawn Movements: Animation Films by GSA Alumni.
- Smith, Sarah (2012) 'In Celebration of Grass Roots and Grass Widows: Women's Art Collaborations in Glasgow'. Map magazine.
- Smith, Sarah (2012) 'Spectres, Absences and Frames'. Collective Gallery.
- Smith, Sarah (2012) Sculpting Irishness: a discussion of Dublin's commemorative statues of Oscar Wilde and Phil Lynott. Sculpture Journal, 21 (1). pp. 71-81. ISSN 1366 2724
- Smith, Sarah (2011) Exhibition Catalogue Essay: 'Jim Lambie: Eight Miles High'. In: Jim Lambie: Eight Miles High. Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
- Smith, Sarah (2010) Curated exhibition: 'Cinepoetry'. Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, 13th September - 24th October 2010
