Researchers:
Dr Tracey Reynolds (Senior Research Fellow)
Dr Tracey Reynolds is a Senior Research Fellow, in the Families and Social Capital ESRC Research Group, London South Bank University, UK. Tracey’s research interests on families, communities and kinship networks; migration and Diaspora have led to several publications in these areas. Her current research examines Caribbean young people and transnational identities. Publications include ‘Bonding social capital within the Caribbean family and community’, Journal of Community, Work and Family, (2006). Also ‘Caribbean young people, family relationships and social capital’, Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies (2006). She is also the author of Caribbean mothers: identity and experience in the UK (published by Tufnell Press 2005).
Morten Norbye Halvorsen (Research Assistant)
Morten Halvorsen is part-time Research Assistant to the project, focusing on its new media aspects and developing the online network for the participants. Morten holds an MA in Fine Art from Kunstakademiet i Trondheim in Norway and is a practising artist working in the field of electronic media and open source sound.
Dr David Dibosa (Co-Investigator)
David Dibosa writes on issues of spectatorship in relation to contemporary British visual culture. He has published work on art and cultural difference in a wide variety of outlets, ranging from the Times Literary Supplement to The Morning Star. His current critical concerns, centring on the relationship between art criticism and spectatorship, are reflected in his essay 'Fatal Distraction: Art-Writing and Looking at Art', which appeared in the book Put About: A Critical Anthology on Independent Publishing (2004). During the 1990s, David curated public art projects. He trained as a curator, after receiving his first degree from the University of Cambridge. David was awarded his PhD in Art History in 2006 from the University of London. He currently lectures on Fine Art Theory at Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London.
Dr Isabel Shaw (Research Assistant)
Isabel Shaw did her first degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in History of Art and Archaeology (Africa/Asia). She then obtained an MA in the Anthropology of Art and Visual Culture at University College London. During her MA she became especially interested in anthropological approaches to material culture and consumption. After this MA she carried out a sponsored ESRC CASE PhD studentship in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University. Here she was influenced by perspectives on socio-material relations from the study of science and technology, and in particular theories such as Actor Network. Her PhD was an organisational ethnography of a multinational producing everyday consumer goods.
Sarah Thomas (Research Assistant)
Sarah Thomas was born in Britain but has spent half of her life living and studying in Kenya. She took a BA in Anthropology at the University of Durham, during which time she became interested in photography and travelled extensively. Following this she continued to travel and lived abroad. In 2005 was awarded an AHRC grant to study for an MA in Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester, where she had the opportunity to explore her interest in ethnographic filmmaking. Her graduation film from this course, shot among the Samburu of Northern Kenya, is now touring the international short film festival circuit.
Prof Andrew Dewdney (Project Director/Principal Investigator)
Is Professor of Media Education at London South Bank University and the Principal Investigator on the Tate Encounters project. His teaching focuses upon new media and visual culture and his most recent book – The New Media Handbook (Routledge, London, 2006), co-authored with Peter Ride – develops a framework for thinking about the emerging academic field of study of new media. He is Chair of the Board of DA2, (Digital Arts Development Agency) and Chair of the Board of Southwark Theatres Education Project. He is a member of the South Bank Cultural Quarters Directors Group. Originally trained as a fine art painter in the 1960s he went on to become involved in the Sociology of Art and Cultural Studies and was a founder member of the Department of Cultural Studies at the Cockpit Arts Workshop. He is interested in and concerned with the concept and practical utility of critical reflexivity and really useful knowledge in the service of progressive cultural change.
Dr Mike Phillips (Project Consultant)
Mike Phillips was formerly Curator of Cross-Cultural Programmes at Tate. Mike was born in Georgetown, Guyana and came to Britain as a child, growing up in London. He was educated at the University of London and the University of Essex, and gained a PGCE at Goldsmiths College, London. From 1972 to 1983 he worked for the BBC as a journalist and broadcaster on programmes including The Late Show and Omnibus, before becoming a lecturer in media studies at the University of Westminster. He is best known for his crime fiction and was winner of the Crime Writers' Association Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction. He also co-wrote with his brother Trevor, Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain (1998) to accompany a BBC television series telling the story of the Caribbean migrant workers who settled in post-war Britain. His book, London-Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain (2001), is a series of interlinked essays and stories, a portrait of the city seen from locations as diverse as New York and Nairobi, London and Lodz, Washington and Warsaw. He is also a trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Dr Victoria Walsh (Co-Investigator)
Victoria Walsh is Head of Adult Programmes at Tate Britain. Previously, she worked as a freelance curator, project manager and consultant in the fields of visual arts and architecture. She holds an MA in Art History (Courtauld Institute of Art 1993), in Curating (Royal College of Art 1995) and a doctorate on the artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1996). She has also worked as a Research Consultant at the London School of Economics on a report into the creative impact of national museums in the UK. As a freelancer, she co-ordinated the competition to select an architect for Tate Modern, organised the opening of Tate Modern and assisted with the opening of Tate Britain. She has worked for the Mayor's Cultural Office, organising the Fourth Plinth Project in Trafalgar Square, and has published on the post-war British artists Nigel Henderson and Gilbert & George.
Participants
Since the start of the fieldwork in April 2007, there have been four separate groups of students from LSBU who have participated in Tate Encounters. After one year into the fieldwork, participants were given the option to become co-researchers if they intended to continue the fieldwork for a second year. The project currently has fifteen co-researchers.
Co-researchers
Although still mostly undergraduates we developed the idea of the co-researcher because the project was not simply constituting them as the subject of the research. Through workshops, meetings, contributions to the editions and through their own investigations, Co-researchers influence the direction of research and contribute to its outputs. Each co-researcher is paired with a researcher/investigator who mentors them on questions of method and project development.