Art Research Centre – Bath Spa University

The Art Research Centre (ARC) is comprised of artists, artistic researchers, makers, curators and critical writers working across the field of contemporary art practice and theory.

About the Art Research Centre

Our academic staff exhibit and/or publish their work internationally in varied forms ranging from solo and group exhibitions, live performances, and curatorial projects, to the more usual conference presentations, journal articles, book chapters and monographs.

Our research lies at the centre of our intellectual, artistic and operational framework. Through it, we demonstrate our values of imagination, criticality, creativity, innovation and enterprise. At the heart of our approach to research of all forms is a continuing enquiry into the manner in which knowledge can be seen to be produced through both material and immaterial forms; to this extent it is an enquiry into the nature of human knowledge and experience. Our aim is to ensure that this enquiry is of worth and significance to society.

Our research is pursued within a culture of creative curiosity that values equally the contribution of hand skill, machine and digital technologies, and theoretical contexts as means towards this end. Through the research centre, the relationships within the broader subject area within the School of Art, Film and Media and also its relations to the wider cultural, social and political milieu will continue to be subject to interrogation in informal dialogue running alongside more disciplined and structured engagements.

Operation

The Art Research Centre operates formally through scheduled presentations and seminars to support all staff. In addition there are opportunities for informal exchange and discussion across a broad range of subjects in contemporary art focused on staff specialisms such as curatorial practice, artists’ pedagogies, ceramics, and drawing.

Members of the centre provide supervision for our PhD students.

Masthead image credit: Jenny Dunseath, Elbow Project Final Show 2015
'Contact us' image credit: Keith Harrison, Ecstatic Material 2019 (photo by Dom Moore/KARST)

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