Researcher-in-Residence
RESEARCHER-IN-RESIDENCE: A NON-STIPENDIARY RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY
The SSRU offers ‘researchers’ in the field of social sculpture or closely related practices the opportunity to become a researcher-in-residence with the SSRU for periods of between 3, 6 and 9 months. Residencies can be used to:
From our side:
During the residency you will have access to 1 x 2 hour supervision per month with one of the staff. You will also be to participate in all the PhD Social Sculpture fora.
If you develop a project or project proposal during the residency you will have a space on the SSRU website to present this. This might become an on-going arrangement, if your work continues to be closely aligned to the field of social sculpture.
Although this is a non-stipendiary post, it is recognised by university as a temporary Research Affiliate and so you will receive a staff number and access to the library and School of Arts building. It might also be possible to arrange for the use of certain workshop facilities, but this will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.
From your side:
You will be expected to introduce yourself and your intentions at the start of the residency and then to make at least one further presentation to this group before the residency ends. You will also be asked to share what you have done with the Social Sculpture Initiatives Forum, particularly if there are on-going possibilities for collaboration with others.
If your research is appropriate for the MAs and perhaps Undergraduates, then we would like you to try and give one presentation to them too.
Residencies are open to individuals and small collectives from any disciplinary background or context, provided your proposed work or research is closely aligned to the field of social sculpture. The proposed work can be text based, organisational, activist, citizenship related or practice-based in arts, culture and/or sustainability.
Please send initial expressions of interest and queries to Maris Palmi: maris.palmi-2012@brookes.ac.uk
In October 2012 we had our first non-stipendiary Researcher-in-Residence in the Social Sculpture Research Unit.
Janhavi Dhamankhar joined us from Pune, India for 6 months (Oct 2012 – April 2013) to write a number of research papers and explore ways of developing the social sculpture field with other colleagues in Mumbai and Bangalore, once back in India. Her work with us is continuing in 2014 in India. Janhavi is organising a series of introductory sessions on University of the Trees and Earth Forum in Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore.
Janhavi is an accomplished Classical Indian Dancer, has studied Indian and Western Aesthetics and has an MPhil (Cum Laude) in Phenomenology from the University of Leuven, Belgium. The focus of her MPhil is on Empathy.
The SSRU offers ‘researchers’ in the field of social sculpture or closely related practices the opportunity to become a researcher-in-residence with the SSRU for periods of between 3, 6 and 9 months. Residencies can be used to:
- develop a proposal for a future project
- develop and present a project in Oxford or surrounding areas
- develop a research proposal for doctoral or postdoctoral study linked to the SSRU
From our side:
During the residency you will have access to 1 x 2 hour supervision per month with one of the staff. You will also be to participate in all the PhD Social Sculpture fora.
If you develop a project or project proposal during the residency you will have a space on the SSRU website to present this. This might become an on-going arrangement, if your work continues to be closely aligned to the field of social sculpture.
Although this is a non-stipendiary post, it is recognised by university as a temporary Research Affiliate and so you will receive a staff number and access to the library and School of Arts building. It might also be possible to arrange for the use of certain workshop facilities, but this will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.
From your side:
You will be expected to introduce yourself and your intentions at the start of the residency and then to make at least one further presentation to this group before the residency ends. You will also be asked to share what you have done with the Social Sculpture Initiatives Forum, particularly if there are on-going possibilities for collaboration with others.
If your research is appropriate for the MAs and perhaps Undergraduates, then we would like you to try and give one presentation to them too.
Residencies are open to individuals and small collectives from any disciplinary background or context, provided your proposed work or research is closely aligned to the field of social sculpture. The proposed work can be text based, organisational, activist, citizenship related or practice-based in arts, culture and/or sustainability.
Please send initial expressions of interest and queries to Maris Palmi: maris.palmi-2012@brookes.ac.uk
In October 2012 we had our first non-stipendiary Researcher-in-Residence in the Social Sculpture Research Unit.
Janhavi Dhamankhar joined us from Pune, India for 6 months (Oct 2012 – April 2013) to write a number of research papers and explore ways of developing the social sculpture field with other colleagues in Mumbai and Bangalore, once back in India. Her work with us is continuing in 2014 in India. Janhavi is organising a series of introductory sessions on University of the Trees and Earth Forum in Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore.
Janhavi is an accomplished Classical Indian Dancer, has studied Indian and Western Aesthetics and has an MPhil (Cum Laude) in Phenomenology from the University of Leuven, Belgium. The focus of her MPhil is on Empathy.
Taken from : http://www.social-sculpture.org/graduate-study/doctoral-research-in-social-sculpture/
Doctoral Research in Social Sculpture
For people interested in doing practice-based research and theoretical explorations in social sculpture and related areas. The options are: practice-based, part practice-part text, and purely text-based.
DOCTORAL RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES
Doctoral research in the field of Social Sculpture and related areas can be ‘practice-based’, part practice – part theory, or 100% theory.
The ‘related areas’ are: Art and Sustainability, Connective Practices and Activism, Relational and Connective Aesthetics, Social Sculpture and Ecological Citizenship, the connection between Imagination and Transformation as well as more theoretical work on Joseph Beuys, Rudolf Steiner, Goethe and Schiller.
Doing a practice-based interdisciplinary Doctorate in Social Sculpture does not require that you have an ‘arts’ background. But you are most likely to have a strong interest in the role of imagination in transformation, irrespective of your disciplinary background.
The ‘practice-based’ programme entails establishing research questions and then researching these questions in and through the practice. The 15,000 to 20,000 word commentary undertaken at the end of this process, is more of a route map – describing, analysing and reflecting on the whole enquiry.
The ‘part practice, part theory’ option is similar, although the theory element is required to build an ‘argument’. In other words, the research questions are explored, not only through the practice, but also in a more traditional ‘humanities’ style way – through argumentation and logic.
The 100% ‘theory’ option explores the research questions by means of a logical inquiry articulated in a traditional textual thesis.
The Doctoral Programme in Social Sculpture is tutored by Prof. Shelley Sacks and Dr. Wolfgang Zumdick in conjunction with other departmental staff such as Ray Lee and Dr. Paul Whitty, as appropriate.
Prof. Walter Kugler, Dr. Hildegard Kurt, Dr. Graham van Wyk and other SSRU Associates – may also form part of the supervisory team as Special Advisors.
The PhD programme is 3 years full-time, or 5 years part-time. Students develop their practice ‘in the world’ during this period. Therefore part-time need not mean a long suspension of ones practice. On the contrary, a practice-base PhD is rather a continuation of practice – but within a structured and reflective dialogue process.
We now have three completions (Dr. Nicholas Stronczyk – examined by Prof. John Newling and Dr. Mary-lou Barratt examined by Dr. Isis Brook, and Dr. Jo Thomas examined by Prof. Chris Dorset).
There are currently several Social Sculpture related PhDs in progress (Claudia Schluermann, Pertra Johnson, Wilfred Ukpong, Charlotte Heffernan, Will McCallum, Maris Palmi, Dr. Helena Fox, Dianne Regisford, Hans Goettel, Pantea Lachin, Stephan Siber, Beatrice Catazaro and several others in the process of enrolment). These Social Sculpture / Art and Sustainability / Connective Practices / Acoustic Ecology / Ecological Citizenship / Social Sculpture theory PhDs are within an Arts Department that now has a total of 41 PhD students.
The PhD students regularly interact with the postgraduate students doing the MA Interdisciplinary Arts programme. There are currently 28 students on this Masters programme, of which the MA Social Sculpture forms a significant part.
This is not a taught PhD programme. However, new PhD students are able and encouraged to sit in on one semester of the taught MA in Social Sculpture.
Although not a ‘taught’ programme, there is regular supervision, as well as many opportunities for group discussion and sharing ones work if students are based in the UK.
There are also regular fora in which PhD Social Sculpture students participate. These include the 6 PhD Social Sculpture fora per year; fortnightly fora for all School of Arts PhD students that explore more generic questions related to your research; regular university-wide generic research training sessions throughout the period of your research.
Each student designs their own programme in dialogue with their Director of Studies.
An outline of your desired focus or area of study (1 to 2 A4 sides) can be submitted to Shelley Sacks as the basis for a preliminary discussion.
THE PROCESS OF ASCERTAINING APPROPRIATENESS
If this first outline seems viable you will then be asked to write and submit a more formal ‘Application to Enroll’ through UKPass.
The research programme and the payment of any fees begins only once your have formally been accepted and enrolled.
Please get in touch if you would like to undertake a PhD in Social Sculpture or closely related topics.
Alternatively, you can make an initial application directly through UKPass: Contact Helen Tanner at Oxford Brookes for further details: htanner@brookes.ac.uk
TITLES OF DOCTORATES WE ARE SUPERVISING
Catazaro, Beatrice – Participatory Art Practice: New Understandings of Intersubjective Space, Including Special Reference to the Bait al Karama (House of Dignity), in the Old City of Nablus, in the Palestinian Occupied Territories [Working title] (More coming soon)
Ewald, Axel – Reclaiming the Soul of Landscape and Reclaiming Landscape for the Soul: the Creation of Arenas for Imaginative Engagement with Place and its Fabric in an Ecologically Challenging, Socially and Politically Charged Environment (Read more)
Fox, Helena – From Anaesthetic to Aesthetic in the Clinic: an Enquiry into the Role of Embodied Ways of Knowing and ‘Connective Aesthetic’ Practices as a Further Dimension to Evidence-based Knowledge in Healthcare (Read more)
Goettel, Hans – The International Community as a Work of Art: Explorations of Dag Hammarskjoeld´s Lifework in Theory and Practice with Special Reference to the Field of Social Sculpture (Read more)
Heffernan, Charlotte – Listening to All the Signals: Sense, Impulse, and the Fabric of Experience (More coming soon)
Johnson, Petra – Social Sculpture Practices as a Means of Valuing and Engaging with the Hidden Life of a Locality (Read more)
Lachlin, Pantea – Expanded Art Practices as Gateways to Social Inclusion (Read more)
McCallum, Will – Autonomous Spaces and Transformative Processes Toward an Ecologically Viable Future (Read more)
Palmi, Maris – The Role of the Artistic Mode in Transformative Process and its Transdisciplinary Relevance (More coming soon)
Regisford, Dianne – Beyond fragile beings in fragile states: Explorations in the Field of Social Sculpture Towards Strengthening Urban Resilience through Transformative Participatory Governance in Sustainable Development Practice (More coming soon)
Schluermann, Claudia – ‘Material’ as Gateway to Other Forms of Knowing: What the Secrets in Materials and Processes Have to Offer in the Field of Transformative Social Practice (Read more)
Siber, Stephan – Aesthetic Education and Social Sculpture: Heinrich Marianus Deinhardt’s Unnoticed Contribution to the Evolution of Joseph Beuys’ ‘Expanded Conception of Art’ (More coming soon)
Singh, Anupam – Memoirs of Altered Landscapes: a Dialogical Enquiry into Cultural Mapping [Working title] (More coming soon)
Stanley, Sarah – Navigating The Ruins: Capitalism and Crisis, Trauma and Transformation [Working title] (More coming soon)
Ukpong, Wilfred – Blazon Chapters: Creative Interventions in the Margin of Two Worlds – Art and Social Praxis (Read more)
COMPLETIONS
Barratt, Mary-lou – WE ARE THE REVOLUTION? – The ‘Creative Social Action’ of La Fiambrera, Skart and Superflex, and its Contribution to Sustainable Social Change (More coming soon)
Stronczyk, Nicholas – ‘Thinking in Form and (In)formed Thought’: An Exploration of Aesthetic Strategies and Methodologies in New Art Practices, with Special Reference to Joseph Beuys’ ‘Expanded conception of Art’ (More coming soon)
Thomas, Jo – Presencing Place: an Enquiry into the Knowing and Shaping of Place Through Expanded Art Practices (Read more)
See Students section for details of their research projects
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT
The Postgraduate Administrator Helen Tanner: htanner@brookes.ac.uk or
The Postgraduate Tutor Ray Lee: ray.lee@brookes.ac.uk
social.sculpture.ssru@gmail.com
Social Sculpture Research Unit
c/o Oxford Brookes University Headington Oxford, UK OX3 0BP
Tuition fees
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/studying-at-brookes/courses/postgraduate/2015/social-sculpture/
Home / EU full-time on-campus fee: £5,230Home / EU part-time on-campus fee: £2,670
International full-time on-campus fee: £12,600
Where part-time fees are quoted this is for the first year only. Fees will increase by approximately 4% each year.
Questions about fees?
Contact Student Finance on:
+44 (0)1865 483088
finance-fees@brookes.ac.uk
Funding and scholarships
For general sources of financial support, see:
- Funding for Postgraduate students from the UK and EU
- Funding for Postgraduate students from outside the EU
other helpful links
http://www.exchange-values.org/
