From 10–14 March 2008 PhD Research Students in Arts, Architecture, Design and Historical & Critical Studies held their first ever exhibition of current work at Grand Parade. The sixteen exhibitors showed work-in-progress in the ‘CETLD Corridor’ and ‘Stairwell Gallery’ and the exhibition featured research projects at all stages of the PhD programme.
As the show specifically demonstrated, PhD research in our Faculty covers a wide and fascinating range of subject areas and is conducted in many different ways, using traditional methods and also research through artistic practice. For example, Jane Hattrick (MPhil/PhD School of Historical & Critical Studies), following a traditional PhD, exhibited examples from a newly-discovered archive of Norman Hartnell (1901-1979), Britain’s most celebrated couturier in the period 1938 to the early 1960s; Sarah Haybittle’s (MPhil/PhD School of Arts & Communication) installation work, 'an exquisite pleasure', explored issues of memory and narrative that are central to her practice-based PhD thesis entitled Fugitive Tales from the Edge of Memory: A Visual Interpretation of Female Narratives, 1900-1939; Deirdre O’Mahony (PhD School of Arts & Communication) showed an insightful documentary on her X-PO project, which in September 2007 re-opened the former post office in Kilnaboy Co. Clare with the aim to revive the site as a community point of contact, reactivating the kind of incidental community energy that was once commonly associated with the day to day business of rural Post Offices all over Ireland; while Mike Sadd’s (PhD School of Architecture & Design) elegant images demonstrated visually a key new theory in design scholarship.
The week-long exhibition was underpinned by a symposium on Wednesday 12 March in the CETLD space at Grand Parade, which featured talks by four current MPhil/PhD students – Verity Clarkson, Cathy Gale, Katie Arbuckle and Deirdre O’Mahony – and two members of staff from the School of Arts and Communication – Emma Stibbon and Dr. Sally Miller. Emma’s talk, Glaciers and Aerial Views: Observation and Recording in the Field, complemented her three drawings in the exhibition. She showed and discussed how her work often addresses environments that are in a condition of flux or change, focusing on how the apparently monumental can be so fragile. Sally spoke on a very poignant subject for the majority of audience, Traumatic Memory: The Process of Researching and Writing a PhD, which precipitated a lively discussion on practice-led research, focused on some key remarks by Professor Bruce Brown. The symposium also included a very well attended and received series of short gallery talks, where in a 45-minute tour many of the exhibiting researchers described their work to an audience comprising staff, undergraduate and postgraduate students, and external visitors. The day’s events drew colleagues not only from across the University of Brighton, but also from the University of Sussex and the University College for the Creative Arts.
All of those students who exhibited, at whatever stage in their academic programme, have through the trials and tests of research demonstrated their distinct and unique contribution to knowledge in their subject area. In diverse and appropriate media, the exhibits indicated the wide range of very specific theoretical and design concerns explored in the Faculty’s doctoral research. The exhibition was organised by the Research Student Division (RSD), located in the Centre for Research & Development.
