Research theme: Visual Culture
Responding to a wide range of visual media and visual practices through a critical, historical and theoretical lens.
About our research
About our research
The Visual Culture Research Group (VCRG) focuses on critical, historical and theoretical responses to a wide range of visual practices. These include art, performance and photography, as well as aspects of material culture.
Our group members are particularly concerned with the social and political significance of different forms of visual culture.
Our position within Manchester School of Art also allows us to shape and formulate our research in the wider context of art, design and curatorial practice.
The VCRG plays a significant role in the development of the art and performance postgraduate research community. Recent PhD subjects include:
- images of refugees
- participatory book art
- activist art collectives in Israel
- St Ives modernism
- Jewish identities in nineteenth painting and online visual mis- and disinformation
We welcome enquiries from potential PhD candidates interested in working in the research areas we cover.
Our research informs our teaching on the undergraduate programmes in art theory and practice and within the contextualising practice framework, which is delivered across Manchester School of Art.
Our research areas
- Art, class, labour and capitalism
- Race, diaspora and colonialism
- Tourism, place and the sensory
- Memory and visual and material culture
- Visual culture, protest and conflict
- Social media images and online visual culture
- Socially engaged art
- Irish art
- East Asian art
- Media philosophy, critical theory and media technologies
Selected projects
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Key publications
Key publications
Kennedy, B (2022) Imaging Migration in Post-war Britain: Artists of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese Heritage Routledge
Child, D, B, Walmsley et al (2022) Culture in Crisis: Impacts of Covid-19 on the UK cultural sector and where we go from here Leeds: Centre for Cultural Value
Child, D (2021) Invisible Hands: Perceiving Labour in Contemporary Art in: Sonsbeek 20 to 24 Force Times Distance Reader #1: On Labour Archive Books
Kennedy, B, Gladston P and Turner, M (2021) Visual Culture Wars at the Borders of Contemporary China: Art, Design, Film, New Media and the Prospects of “Post-West” Contemporaneity Palgrave Macmillan
Faulkner, S (2020) Visibility, Photography and the Occupation: The Case of the Activestills Collective in: Pasternak, G (ed) Visioning Israel-Palestine Bloomsbury Visual Arts, pp.184-209
Barber, F (2020) Brexit Wounds: Arts and Humanities Responses to Leaving the European Union special edition of Open Arts, co-edited with Byrne, E
Child, D (2019) Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism Radical Aesthetics Radical Art/Bloomsbury
Faulkner, S (2019) Photography and Protest in Israel and Palestine: The Activestills Online Archive in: McGarry, A. et al (ed) The Aesthetics of Global Protest: Visual Culture and Communication, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 151-170
Faulkner, S (2019) Photographic witnessing, the occupation and Palestinian politics in: Schankweiler, K, Straub, V and Wendl, T (eds) Image Testimonies: Witnessing in Times of Social Media Routledge, pp. 89-103
Barber, F, Hanson, H and McQuaid, SD (eds) (2019) Ireland and the North Peter Lang
Barber, F (2019 and 2020) Curated exhibition: Elliptical Affinities: Irish Women’s Art and the Politics of the Body 1985 to present, Highlanes Gallery Drogheda and Limerick Gallery of Modern Art
Warstat, A (2018) Adorno, Lewis Klahr and the Shuddering Image in: Murray, J, Ehrlich, N (eds) Drawn from Life: Issues and Themes in Animated Documentary Cinema Edinburgh University Press, pp. 143-157
MacDonald, G (2018) Traces, tiles and fleeting moments: art and the temporalities of geomedia in: Gekker, A, Hind, S et al (eds) Time for mapping: Cartographic Temporalities Manchester University Press
MacDonald, G (2016) Bodies Moving and Being Moved: Mapping affect in: Nold, C (ed) Bio Mapping’, Somatechnics, 4(1), pp. 108-132
Warstat, A (2014) Unteachable and unlearnable: the ignorance of artists in: On Not Knowing How Artists Think, Black Dog Pub Limited
Organisations we work with
Contact information
Contact us
For general enquiries about our Visual Culture Research Group, you can contact its lead Dr Simon Faulkner.