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Doctoral students in Top 50 Research Images as Art / Art Images as Research
20 August 2024
Photos and paintings by three postgraduate students illustrate the beauty of images produced during academic research and how art can be a form of researching, in UCL’s annual cross-disciplinary competition.
These artworks featured in a shortlist of the top 50 images from its cross-disciplinary competition, out of 218 entries submitted this year.
The UCL Doctoral School has since announced the winning and runner up entries from this year’s competition.
The judging panel was particularly interested in images that effectively translate or communicate their subject to viewers who may not be familiar with the field, potentially altering the way we view the world.
IOE entries in the top 50:
The story skirt: 150 years of priesthood
By Kate Fox (Education and International Development MA, and current IOE staff)
“What counts as a document? Who decides?
“During my MA research on community and religious literacy forms and artefacts in rural Southern Tanzania (Mtwara), I met this woman on her way to church. The skirt is her 'Sunday best' - she has made deliberate decisions about both the creation of the garment - as she would have chosen the fabric, and taken it to a tailor - and the wearing of it in a specific community space (her village, her church).
“The skirt is thus a document through which she signals both her deep Catholic faith to others, and her celebration of the Tanzanian Jubilee of 150 years of Catholic priesthood. The skirt is an excellent example of an important overlooked literacy practice in East African countries - fabric and cloth as social and historical documents which are deeply ingrained in their socio-cultural contexts."
In March Kate was awarded the BERA Masters dissertation award for her dissertation written on the same project.
Historical Affects: Data, Causation, and Mind
By Katherine Wallace (Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment PhD)
"The paintings are a response to data collected as part of my doctoral research. My research project is post-qualitative and uses a Deleuzian ontology to trouble the history classroom. The overarching proposition guiding my research is: what is it that emerges as historically significant for students during their history lessons.
“The paintings are connected to a chapter focusing on data and how the data we collect as history education researchers defines what is identified as 'historically significant.'
“These are painted replicas of Excel spreadsheets showing the incidence of deductive and inductive codes. The aim when producing these paintings was to play with the notion of spreadsheets being pleasing because of their uniformity and order and therefore implicitly important and revelatory of 'something' when it comes to research findings.”
Convivial Hills of Amman
By Jessie Sullivan (Education, Practice and Society PhD)
“The image I’m submitted to the UCL 'Research Images as Art / Art Images as Research' Competition is a painting I made during a workshop I conducted in Amman, Jordan during my fieldwork in the summer of 2023. I am studying the impact of infrastructure on the feeling of belonging and presencing of refugees in Amman, and conducted collaborative visual arts workshops to create convivially with my research collaborators and gather data around my research questions. During this particular workshop, collaborators were creating around the question, “How have you impacted Amman and how has Amman impacted you?”
“I wanted to participate alongside the refugee artist collaborators and paint how I feel I have contributed to Amman, which has been through spreading my love of art, teaching some technical art skills, and encouraging reflection and creativity at these workshops. Amman has impacted me through introducing me to so many lovely and inspiring people, particularly refugee women, who create and uphold community amidst incredible hardship in the chaotic urban field. We’ve been able to connect as people hoping for and working towards a better future, as artists sharing our love of creativity, and as collaborators working convivially.”
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