PhD student Jade French awarded a research network grant

Jade French, PhD student in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, has been awarded a grant from the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH) Student-Led Forums scheme to set up a new Arts & Social Change Network.

The Student-Led Forums scheme allows doctoral researchers to access funds to support events that will benefit all researchers across the White Rose Consortium (Leeds, Sheffield and York).

Arts and Social Change aims to describe a broad field of work in which the arts intersect with social or political intentions. In this context, art is a political act and produced in a conscious effort to facilitate and/or participate in social change. The interdisciplinary nature of this field, with blurred boundaries between arts, geography, sociology and politics, requires an equally collaborative approach to its exploration and understanding.

Jade explains how the Arts and Social Change Network came about:

‘As a newly funded Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) student, I was automatically included into the White Rose College of Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH), one of 11 brand new doctoral training partnerships.

‘Being a part of WRoCAH has introduced me to a much wider network of PhD students and at one of their training events I met Pippa Gardner, a fellow Collaborative Doctoral Award recipient with similar research interests, from the University of Sheffield. We both found our conversations so helpful that we decided to build on this by applying for WRoCAH’s Student-Led Forum grant. This award would support us to develop a network across the three White Rose institutions, bringing together more students whose research intersects with the arts and social change.’

With the funding, Jade and Pippa aim to organise six network meetings between January and Summer 2015, each with an inspiring and interesting guest giving a different perspective on the role of the arts in creating and sustaining social change. The network is open to AHRC funded doctoral research students working in similar areas, with travel expenses available for students in the current WroCAH cohort.

Jade is a member of the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage at the University of Leeds and began her PhD in autumn 2014:

‘I am a socially engaged artist working predominantly in collaboration with people who have a learning difficulty. All of my work is motivated by the potential for art to shape social change, and I was keen to develop a network that connects knowledge from diverse sources, including the arts, geography, sociology and politics.

‘My own PhD study titled 'Art as Advocacy?’ is very reflective of the network in that it intersects academia, curatorial practice and the political act of self advocacy. The research is in collaboration with self advocacy group Halton Speak Out and art gallery the Bluecoat, and aims to explore the potential for participatory curatorial practice by people with learning difficulties, to act a site for self advocacy.’

Dr Helen Graham, Director for the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage, said:

‘Jade’s AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award is exploring a really crucial area. It’s brilliant the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities is enabling students to be pro-active in building peer PhD networks to explore the interdisciplinary contexts for their research. I look forward to seeing the Arts and Social Change Network develop.’

For more information about the Arts and Social Change Network, including how to join, see the website.