MOBILITIES RESEARCH: I was Visiting Fellow (2017-2018) at Centre for Mobilities Research (Cemore), Lancaster University. This draws on my associated with Cemore since circa 2012, when I first shared my work in a seminar chaired by the great late Professor John Urry. My key question as researcher, curator and co-leader with other artist-researchers in the emerging field of art and mobilities or #ArtMobs is: How could art practice extend mobilities research and create new insights about how social & material realities are made in/through the (im)mobility of people, resources, ideas & information? Within this broad question, I was interested in the roles of running as a creative discourse and an artistic research paradigm, mind wandering and the restless body and mind as a mode of interrogation and intervention amid a world in motion, and the expression and (re)presentation of mobilities research and how that relates to dyslexia, art writing and performance-lecture.

FELLOWSHIP: I was Visiting Fellow (2017-2018) at the Centre for Mobilities Research. Cemore, at the Lancaster University, is iconic as it initiated the transdisciplinary mobilities paradigm, which draws on social sciences, arts, humanities and sciences endeavour. Mobilities research is powerful because it is mobile, agile and responsive. It encompasses the analysis of the global, national and local movements of people, objects, capital, information & material things combining together to engender the economic and social patterning of life. Past Fellows include Dr Bradley L. Garrett, well-known for his urban explorations.

ACTIVITIES: I co-led & planned an Inaugural Symposium & Exhibition for interdisciplinary Art & Mobilities Network. My key collaborator was Dr Jen Southern, who is Director, Mobilities Lab, and pioneer in art and mobilities) and a generous and kind leader. Also in the core team were the wonderful Prof. Emma Rose (Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts) and Dr Linda O Keeffe, Head of Art, Edinburgh College of Art. The Symposium & exhibition took place at Peter Scott Gallery. 30 colleagues from arts, sociology and design from 15 institutions participated including online, like ), co-founder of Mobilities Research Prof. Mimi Sheller (Drexel University, USA) and others from Pantheon Sorbonne (Paris), Griffith (Australia), Goldsmiths (UK). I delivered a new keynote lecture, and initiated, designed and edited an ‘instant journal’ to outstanding feedback. Since then, a mailing list has been launched and is led by Jen and Dr Kaya Barry (Griffith University).

CONTRIBUTIONS INCLUDE:

  • Extending mobilities research and mobile art practice by introducing running through artistic research, subjective neurodiverse and intersectional perspectives
  • Sharing experimental, imaginative, practice-led and embodied approaches that draw on live/performance and participatory art
  • Using performative voice in writing that draws on the tradition of art manifesto counters authoritative voice in academic convention.

OUTPUTS INCLUDE:

Caption: Extract from Instant Journal (2018)