DR. SARAH LOWNDES
info@sarahlowndes.net
Curator, lecturer and lecturer. Director of Kunsthalle Cromer and Research Fellow at Norwich University of the Arts. Lowndes’ research encompasses curatorial practice, contemporary art, interdisciplinary and performance-related practice and writing.
Research and Teaching
I have taught in HE contexts for the last 17 years whilst also working as an independent curator, writer and editor, so I draw on practical experience as well as theoretical perspectives and offer a cross-disciplinary approach to learning and teaching. I have taught in both university and art school contexts, and still do: currently combining my role as Research Fellow at NUA with working as an Associate Tutor at the University of East Anglia. I teach several interconnected subjects including Art History (with a focus on post 1945 art and design), Art & Design in Organisational Contexts (including Gallery and Museum Studies) and Creative Writing.
Education
2011- 2013 MLitt Creative Writing, Glasgow University
2002-2007 Glasgow School of Art AHRC funded PhD on Performance Art of the 1960s and 70s.
2000-2001 Glasgow School of Art M.Phil. Art and Design in Organisational Contexts.
1993-1997 University of Glasgow M.A. (Hons), English Literature / Film and Television Studies.
Employment
2017 – Research Fellow, Norwich University of the Arts
2017 – Associate Tutor, University of East Anglia
2015 – 2016 Visiting Lecturer, Glasgow School of Art
2011 – 2014 Visiting Lecturer, Glasgow University
2008 – Independent Curator
2002 – 2015 Lecturer, Forum for Critical Inquiry, Glasgow School of Art
1997 – Freelance arts writer
Selected Curatorial Projects
Course leader, Site Writing, Shared Reading and Creative Writing workshops, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, Norwich, February 2019 – January 2020.
Course leader, Like the Sea I Think, ACE funded Shared Reading and Creative Writing project delivered in partnership with Norfolk Libraries at Cromer Library and Millennium Library, October-December 2018.
Workshop leader, Shared Reading WWI poetry workshops at Wells-Next-the-Sea and Brancaster Beach, Pages of the Sea (14-18 NOW / National Trust, November 2018).
Curator, Esplanade: A Procession for Women, with participation of 100 local girls and women, Kunsthalle Cromer, West Promenade, Cromer, 8 March 2018.
Curator, Panoramic Sea Happening, re-enactment of Tadeusz Kantor’s 1967 happening, with Henry Layte as The Conductor, Kunsthalle Cromer, East Beach, Cromer, June 2017.
Curator, New Edition, group exhibition by Museums Press, Poster Club and Emer Tumilty (Edinburgh Printmakers / Edinburgh Art Festival, July 2017).
Editor of bi-annual The Burning Sand prose, poetry and art magazine and curator of related live events (2012-2016), funded by Creative Scotland, distributed by Motto and Good Press.
Curator, Valise and co-curator, GLASGOW WEEKEND: art, music and design from Glasgow (Volksbuehne and BQ, Berlin, 18-22 September 2013).
Curator, Studio 58: Women Artists in Glasgow Since WWII (Mackintosh Museum, 2012), exhibition included works by 53 artists including loans from the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow Museums and Glasgow Women’s Library. Co-organiser (with GSA Exhibitions and AAC, GSA) of Studio 58 symposium, and organiser of related film screening event (2012).
Curator, Dialogue of Hands sculpture park with commissioned works by Chris Johanson, Camilla Low, Mary Redmond and Corin Sworn (Glasgow International, 2012).
Curator and producer, Urlibido, commissioned works by Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth, Susie Green, Shelly Nadashi, Kimberley O’Neill, Morag Ross and Cara Tolmie (Glasgow International, 2010).
Curator of Votive exhibition, with works by George Brecht, Nerea Bello, Chris Burden, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Thea Djordjadze, Torsten Lauschmann, Richard Wright and objects loaned from The World Cultures Collection of Glasgow Museums (CCA, Glasgow, 2009).
Chair and co-organiser (with Kathryn Elkin and Louise Shelley) of Subject in Process: Feminism and Art symposium (CCA, Glasgow, 2009).
Curator, Three Blows – all-sound acoustic performance (St. Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh, 2008), with Keith Rowe, Mayo Thompson, Sarah Kenchington, Richard Wright and Luke Fowler.
Selected Published Writing
Site Writing: Responses to the Living Area, Sarah Lowndes and Nell Croose Myhill, ed.s, (Norwich: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, 2020, forthcoming).
Like the Sea I Think: New Marine Writing from East Anglia, Sarah Lowndes ed., (Norwich: UEA Publishing Project, 2019).
“Learning to Get Along with People We Don’t Like: Artist-led Projects in Glasgow”, Jeff Khonsary and Antonia Pinter ed.s, Institutions by Artists: Volume Two (Vancouver: Filip Editions, 2019, forthcoming).
“Meanwhile at Lower Green, Norwich”, Enclave Review (Cork, Eire: 2019).
Contemporary Artists Working Outside the City: Creative Retreat (London and New York, Routledge, 2018).
Actions: The Image of the World Can Be Different, Andrew Nairne and Sarah Lowndes, ed.s, (Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard, 2018).
The DIY Movement in Art, Music and Publishing: Subjugated Knowledges (London and New York, Routledge, 2016, reprinted in paperback edition 2018).
“The Key Material is Time”, Generation Reader (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2014).
All Art is Political: Writings on Performative Art (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2014).
“Window shopping: Glasgow art and the politics of display”, Function / Dysfunction – Contemporary art from Glasgow, (Nürnberg: Neues Museum, Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design, 2013).
“Hole Punch: The Late Autobiographical Works of Dieter Roth”, Dieter Roth: Diaries, (Edinburgh: Fruitmarket Gallery / London: Yale University Press, 2012).
Studio 58: Women Artists in Glasgow Since World War II, Sarah Lowndes ed., (Glasgow: Glasgow School of Art Exhibitions Department, 2012).
“Botanical Vaudeville”, Robert Rauschenberg, (New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2011).
Social Sculpture: The Rise of the Glasgow Art Scene (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2010).
“Learned by Heart: The Paintings of Richard Wright’, Richard Wright (New York: Rizzoli, 2010).
“Aleana Egan: A Grey Luminous Light from the Sea”, Aleana Egan (Basel: Kunsthalle Basel, 2008).
“Straight Letters”, Camilla Low, (Dundee: Dundee Contemporary Arts, 2008).
“The Glasgow Scene”, The History of British Art, Volume III (London: Tate Publishing, 2008).
Selected Talks and Lectures
Orator, First There Is a Mountain, Katie Paterson / National Trust, Brancaster Beach, October 2019.
Chair of Artist Unknown panel discussion, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, September 2019.
“Ear of the Edgeland: Breydon Water”, Interview with Bruer Tidman for Broadland Sounds podcast series, Great Yarmouth, May 2019.
“A Field Guide to Getting Lost”, Shared Reading and Creative Writing workshop for Art & Walking project, Art at Work Norwich, delivered in Mildenhall, Suffolk, March 2019.
“Vacant Lots: Artist-Led Spaces, Meanwhile Use and Regeneration”, Lower. Green, Norwich, February 2019.
“Why I Write: Creative Writing as Practice”, Artist’s Programme, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, February 2019.
“The DIY Movement in Art, Music and Publishing: Subjugated Knowledges”, The London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, London, September 2018.
“Nice Style: Self-Fashioning in Post-Punk Glasgow Art Bands”, EuroNoize conference, University of Reading, September 2018.
“We Are Born as Nouns Not Verbs: Agnes Martin and the New Mexico Desert”, World Art Research Seminar, University of East Anglia, Norwich, May 2018.
Norfolk Community Arts Roundtable, New Perspectives in Participatory Arts, AHRC Connected Communities Conference, University of East Anglia, May 2018.
Chair of discussion event “What Can Art Do?” with Natasha Walter and Caroline Walker, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, April 2018.
Chair of Women of the World Festival discussion event with Valeria Napoleone and Caroline Douglas, Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich, April 2018.
“Women, Act, Make, Archive, Reset”, panel discussion with Adele Patrick and Elizabeth O’Brien, Glasgow Zine Fest, CCA Glasgow, April 2018.
“Real Life Research”, Postgraduate Research Workshop, Norwich University of the Arts, March 2018.
“Public Art Now”, Chair of Study Afternoon, SCVA, UEA, Norwich, September 2017.
“Self-organize: DIY for a Successful Career”, Professional Practice Seminar, School of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art, April 2017.
“Contemporary Artist Working Outside the City: Creative Retreat”, Research Seminar, Ideas Factory, Norwich University of the Arts, March 2017.
“The DIY Movement”, The Friday Event, Glasgow School of Art, October 2016.
Public Roundtable, “East or Eden? Contemporary Art in Norwich”, Norwich University of the Arts, September 2016.
“DIY Publishing since 1955”, Visiting Lecturer to Central Saint Martin’s Graphic & Communication Design Foundation course, January 2016.
“The Handshake and the Interface: The Glasgow Art Scene since 1990”, AAH2015, Annual Conference, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 9 – 11 April 2015.
“It’s about the weight (wait)”, Lunch Bytes on Education and Learning, Goethe Institute/CCA Glasgow, December 2014.
“Window shopping: Glasgow art and the politics of display” Nürnberg: Neues Museum, Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design, December 2013.
Visiting lecturer, School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University, October 2013.
“Time, concentration and supermarkets”, The Future Symposium, Jerwood Visual Arts and Film and Video Umbrella/CCA Glasgow, 2013.
“In conversation: Bjorn Roth” at the opening of Dieter Roth: Diaries, Camden Art Centre, London, 2013.
