School of Art and Design (LUSAD)

Postgraduates are integrated within the School-wide research culture through research groups & representation on key departmental committees; they are active conveners & participants in LUSAD conferences & events, which are held regularly. 2008 included the symposium A Politicized Art; a series of artists’ presentations Provoking Practice; the symposium Visualising Space: Animating the Universe, NSC Leicester. In 2007, the series of symposia Telling Stories looked at experimental forms of Theory and Criticism & of Object and Narrative & the Cinematic Essay. Invited speakers to the School have included Peter Lord , Gijs Bakker, Iain Sinclair, David Shrigley, Steve Bell, Dave McKean, & in 2008/9 Stelarc and Andy Schmidt. The University Arts Centre delivers a programme of arts activities on campus (e.g. Radar). Departmental collaborations with the Centre include co-hosting international artists-in-residence & convening conferences such as Art in the Social Sphere, January 2009 and reinforces the impact of Departmental research on the wider University culture.

In addition to the University’s extensive training provision, Loughborough University School of Art & Design (LUSAD) organises a more specific programme tailored to the needs of Art & Design research, which includes student research seminars, presentations & a biennial departmental student conference. The department is committed to its development as a centre of excellence for practice-led/based research. Collaborative Research Training Projects organised with De Montfort University Leicester (AHRC funded) offer the opportunity for involvement in workshops & the organisation of PGR conferences, a valuable training experience. The first of these (2006 - 2007) In Theory: Encounters with Theory in Practice-based PhD Research in Art & Design considered the interface between practice and theory. http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ac/mainpages/postgraduate/research%20students...
The second collaborative training project entitled Creative Interdisciplinarity in Art & Design Research (2007 - 2009) http://www.interrogations.org.uk/ investigates theories from different disciplines and how they might relate to practice. It is indicative of the departmental commitment to interdisciplinarity in a number of contexts. Research areas in the School are neither defined by conventional disciplinary limits nor by modes of enquiry (pure, applied, strategic, practice-based). Research topics are therefore typically interdisciplinary. Enquiries about the possibility of interdisciplinary research projects across departments (particularly with Social Sciences) have increased recently and we anticipate that this will be a growing trend. The development of a new Design Centre will support research across the breadth of design activity in the University.

The School supports a number of particularly distinctive research interests: Animation, Interdisciplinary Fine Art Practices, Drawing (online journal TRACEY contemporary drawing research - http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ac/tracey/), Textiles & Technology (online journal for Textiles – DUCK coming soon). In 2007, the department acquired the Iris project, an organization dedicated to researching contemporary women photographers; a recently appointed researcher is updating the database with the aim of ‘globalising’ the resource. There are a number of Research Groups, consisting of academics, postgraduates, fellows and technical tutors, which provide a flexible structure and a supportive forum for research interests and a means to develop collaborative projects.

Studentships are available annually on a competitive basis. Whilst the deadline for these is usually March, applicants are advised to contact the department in the first instance to discuss their topic. We are particularly interested in the following areas: Visual Culture, Cultural & Design History, Textiles & Technology, Digital Media Art.

General funding sources