Funded Collaborative PhD opportunity

Centering the Rural: Organisational Identities, Public Engagement and Curatorial Practice at Wysing Arts Centre, 1989 to today 

University of Leicester and Wysing Arts Centre are pleased to share details of a new, fully-funded collaborative PhD opportunity. Examining Wysing’s organisational identities and curatorial practice as a central case study, this project investigates the changing relationship between contemporary art and rural places over the last 35 years.   

The candidate will be based within the world-leading research community at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. They will be supervised by Dr Rosemary Shirley, who has written widely on the relationships between art and rural places including in her book Rural Modernity, Everyday Life and Visual Culture (Routledge, 2015) and second supervisor, artist researcher Prof Becky Shaw, from the College of Art and Design at Birmingham City University.   

The project will also draw on Wysing’s well established model for artists in residence, to support the candidate in becoming a “researcher in residence” at Wysing for the duration of the PhD. Whilst onsite, the researcher will be invited to attend Wysing team meetings and regular meetings with Director, Rosie Cooper and Curator, Amy Jones.

Working to enhance our understanding of the complex intersections between rural places, contemporary art organisations, artists and publics, the project is rooted in the Central Research Question: ‘What can Wysing Art Centre’s organisational identity, approaches to working with diverse publics and artists, and evolving curatorial practices, tell us about the changing relationship between contemporary art and rural places over the last 35 years?’ 

For further details, including the project overview, click here.

If you have any questions, please contact Lead Supervisor Dr Rosemary Shirley at: Rosemary.Shirley@Leicester.ac.uk

Wysing Arts Centre has also put together a series of FAQs for candidates that you can access here.

Photo: Alexis Parinas, ‘There are so many seeds, so many stars’ (2024) was commissioned and produced by Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn. Supported by Arts Council England and Art Fund with the John Armitage Charitable Trust. Photo by Lucy Rose Shaftain-Fenner.