Postgraduate researchers and activities

Current postgraduate researchers

  • Mrinali Alvarez Astacio
  • Sofia Correia Regalado Neto
  • Kelcy Davenport
  • Maryam Golrokh Kaloorazi
  • Rebecca Hearle
  • Amanda Lavis
  • Beatriz Lostalé Seijo
  • Mary Jane Montgomerie House
  • Cavell Ord-Shrimpton
  • Anna Salamon
  • Giuseppina Santoro
  • Amanda Virgoe
  • Flavia Zorrilla Drago

Current projects

Amanda Lavis and Danielle Jones with textile art tied to a hospital screen, and an information table in Cambridge Central Library

Art for Change through Engagement (ACE)

ACE is a collaboration between ARU and Cambridge University. This includes the Welcome Project, which facilitates public participation in art, promoting inclusion and improved clinical outcomes.

Find out more about ACE
The door of the British Pavilion in Venice. It is black, up a set of steps, has columns either side of it, and has 'Gran Bretagna' on a sign above it.

British Council Venice Biennale Fellowships

Every year, one of our postgraduate researchers has the opportunity to spend a month in Venice during the world’s most important art and architecture biennale.

Find out more about British Council Venice Biennale Fellowships
A composite of four images taken at the Uncovered exhibition and symposium

Uncovered: How do you research through art?

Uncovered: How do you research through art? is a postgraduate group project that explores creative, practice-led research journeys.

Find out more about Uncovered: How do you research through art?
Nine people in a classroom holding wooden bricks they have decorated

Building PhD Research Bricks Workshops

Building PhD Research Bricks Workshops are collaborative practice-based creative workshops for PhD students across ARU, run by two postgraduate researchers.

Find out more about Building PhD Bricks Workshops
Find out more and apply for research degrees at Cambridge School of Art

Cambridge School of Art Postgraduate Forum Talks series

This series, coordinated by Senior Research Fellow Dr Elena Cologni, aims at opening up the conversation about creative practice research methodologies: how these arise from practice, are applied, and/or lead to interdisciplinary approaches.

Research staff and students from ARU and external institutions are invited to discuss their methodologies and learn from each other's experiences.

Through examples of research projects the sessions generate new ideas and highlight challenges in the research journey.

Recordings of some of our past sessions are available on the Art & Care Facebook page:

Other sessions have included:

  • Elena Cologni: Artistic research and resilience in difficult times
  • Katy Deepwell: On feminist art and artivisms
  • Marcella Del Signore: Entangled Ecologies of the public realm
  • Elena Cologni: Knowing through creative research: Change, inconsistency and new directions
  • Melinda Guillén: Big time sensuality: Connecting feminist art criticism & intersectionality.

Past projects

Large-scale, multi-layered pencil drawing from Kelcy Davenport's 15th February 2003

15th February 2003

15th February 2003 was a 40-hour sustained drawing performance by Kelcy Davenport that revisited and reanimated the memory of the largest protest in human history.

Find out more about 15th February 2003
A photo of a woman in Middle-Eastern dress on horseback, showing gradients of colour correction

Colour Correction and Colour Theory

Colour Correction and Colour Theory was a research project by Zaid Al Momani that investigated believability in matte painting in motion picture post-production.

Find out more about Colour Correction and Colour Theory
Purple and blue words jumbled up on a screen, from Meizi Zhang's 4-Minutes River

Concrete Poems / 4-Minutes River

Meizi Zhang's research project Concrete Poems, and exhibition 4-Minutes River, explored the possibilities of digital media and visual poetry.

Find out more about Concrete Poems / 4-Minutes River
A woman wearing headphones with arms outstretched to control an art installation

Daughter, Mother, Grandmother

Daughter, Mother, Grandmother was a project by Meizi Zhang that used digital media and visual poetry to illuminate the role of middle-aged mothers.

Find out more about Daughter, Mother, Grandmother
Illustration of two children fighting over a sponge in a bath and the words 'thousand men!' from Becky Palmer's The Grand Old Duke of York

The Grand Old Duke of York

The Grand Old Duke of York was a project by Becky Palmer that explored how conventions from comics and picturebooks can be combined to tell stories in new, effective ways.

Find out more about The Grand Old Duke of York
Gemma Marmalade speaking at the Theory:Practice symposium with the words 'squeaky meat balloon' projected in capitals on the screens behind her

The Pragmatism of Non-Consequential Aesthetic Irrationality

Gemma Marmalade's presentation/performance parodied academic art language and rhetoric.

Find out more about The Pragmatism of Non-Consequential Aesthetic Irrationality
Guests exploring the Theorem exhibition

Theorem and Theory:Practice

Theorem was the first group exhibition of PhD practice-based research in Cambridge School of Art, accompanied by the Theory:Practice symposium.

Find out more about Theorem and Theory:Practice
A fabricated autobiography of a wall created by tracing events and interactions through the collection of ephemera from the wall, thus creating ‘memories’ for it

When a Wall Gets An Autobiography

When a Wall Gets An Autobiography was a project in which Jane Boyer fabricated an autobiography of a wall by tracing events and interactions through ephemera.

Find out more about When a Wall Gets An Autobiography

Past postgraduate researchers

Book cover of Zoom Zoom Zoom by Katherina Manolessou, featuring an illustrated monkey and bird running from left to right

Katherina Manolessou: Multimedia PhD research

ARU Cambridge School of Art PhD graduate Katherina Manolessou's submission combined a text-based thesis, a volume of illustrations, and a published picturebook, Zoom Zoom Zoom. You can find out more about her research on her website.

Boyer, J. L., 2020. The Expanded Mirror. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

Dolan, E., 2020. Humour in picturebooks: an examination of its construction and emergence through creative practice. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

Dong, Y., 2020. The unflattened picturebook: a practice-based investigation into the use of the physical form of the book-object as narrative language. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

Low, J. H., 2020. The autoethnographic picturebook: a practice-based investigation into the expressive potential of the form. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

Zhang, M., 2020. Evaluating the significance of concrete poetry in the emerging practices of digital poetry. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

Chuang, H. Y., 2018. A creative practice-based study of the application of metafictive devices in postmodern picturebooks. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University. Item availability may be restricted.

Tzomaka, V., 2017. A practice based investigation using design and illustration to explore the role of narrative in nonfiction picturebooks. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University. Item availability may be restricted.

Gassas, R. F., 2016. Best practice in adapting logo marks from Latin to non-Latin scripts: a case study in the Arabic market. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

Palmer, R., 2016. Understanding graphic narrative through the synthesis of comic and picturebooks. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

Little, L., 2015. A practice‐based exploration of the relationship between artists’ books and children’s picturebooks. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

George, J., 2013. The sculptural, display, location and forgetful memory. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

Manolessou, K., 2012. A practice-based investigation of animal character development in picturebook illustration. Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

Find out more and apply for research degrees at Cambridge School of Art