Overview

The Department of Art and Design provides a supportive environment for students who wish to undertake postgraduate research leading to the award of MPhil or PhD. Research Degrees can be pursued either through conventional text-based studies or through a combination of studio-based activity where individual creative practice forms a significant part of the intellectual enquiry supported by a critical commentary. The creative work can take any form, but it must be clearly presented in relation to the argument of the thesis and demonstrate an understanding of the appropriate theoretical/historical/critical/ contemporary context of the research.

Research Areas

Research in the Department emanates from its programmes in Fine Art, Photography, and Design and encompasses a broad range of media interests, practical approaches, and historical and theoretical perspectives. A key aspect of both teaching and research at Chester is the notion of interdisciplinarity and dialogue between disciplines and practices is something that is of interest to many of the researchers working within the Department. Areas of research interest that extend across disciplinary boundaries include:

• The legacies of modernism and their reinterpretation through contemporary practice
• The role of materiality and embodiment in thinking, making, and knowing
• Themes of time, place, and cultural memory
• Participatory practice
• Areas of communication, cultural awareness, and identity within digital environments

The Department

The Department would be keen to hear from students who would wish to pursue their research across a broad spectrum of fine art, photography, and design as well as welcoming proposals in these interdisciplinary areas. The Department has seen considerable expansion over recent years with the introduction of new programmes, an increasing proportion of staff with practice-based PhD’s, and a corresponding widening portfolio of research interests; all of which makes for an exciting and rapidly developing research environment. The strength of the Department lies in the supportive environment that it provides for students at every level of study and in the facilitating of dialogues between researchers across a range of subject specialisms.