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, Cinema as Archive in Artists' Moving Image will be published by Bloomsbury in August 2025. 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 was a member of REF2021 Panel 32: Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory.
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.
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)
I supervise PhDs in artists' moving image, feminist film, feminist art, experimental film, and art and archives.
Kelly Rappleye, Unsettling Spaces: Curating Artists’ Moving Image to Interrogate Colonial Legacies in Urban Space.' AHRC/SGSAH-funded PhD. 2022-2026
Rachael Kelly, Constructing an Audiovisual History of Irish Refugees and Immigrants in Scotland (1840s-1980s). AHRC/SGSAH-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA). 2024-2028
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.