Dr Cathy Gale
Faculties, deparments and locations
- Kingston School of Art
- Department of Graphic Design
- School of Design
Course Leader
- Email:
- c.gale@kingston.ac.uk
About
Dr Cathy Gale (MA: RCA / SFHEA / FRSA) is Course Leader for MA Graphic Design, and PhD supervisor (Kingston School of Art, London); external examiner (Chelsea College of Art & Design, UAL) and Glasgow School of Art.
Cathy is a London-based graphic artist, design researcher and educator whose practice is focused on critical design fiction and radical pedagogies in/with diverse communities through performative practice and speculative play.
Working both individually and through (local and student-led) community collaborations, her research acts as a catalyst for social justice and empowerment. By emphasising the strategic role of fiction in/as action research to imagine future scenarios her work encourages us to look beyond conventional norms/models of graphic design and to imagine alternative futures, in an expanded notion of the discipline.
In her role as Professor of Ludic heterotopias at The Free University of Seething and co-leader of the Offshore Art School, Cathy focuses on the collective power of eco-social imaginaries within (local) communities.
Qualifications
- PhD (Brighton University)
- MA Graphic Design and Art Direction (Royal College of Art, London)
- BA (Hons) Graphic Design (Newcastle Polytechnic), distinction
Domains
Qualifications
- Senior Fellowship of the HEA (2016)
Course director
Art school is a transformative locus for risk: a conceptual-architectural site for knowledge but also a temporal space of subversion. I am inspired by the possibilities of liminal spaces in design practice and pedagogy, in exploring the edges of conventional thought and teaching. My practice is engaged with pushing the boundaries of how graphic design is understood and received, how interventions and provocations can catalyse shifts in behaviour, and perceptions of the social sphere. I am an active agent in this process and am committed to collaborative and collective modes of ideation and problem-solving in the guise of project leader, actor, DJ, prop maker, and spokesperson. By repudiating the dominant narrative of individual genius, the collective creates more space to think through social relations, to manipulate or subvert expectations of success, and to bring about cognitive change.
Qualifications
- PhD University of Brighton (2015)
- External Examiner (PhD)
- PhD supervisor
- SFHEA
- MA (RCA)
- Distinction in BA (Hons) Graphic Design
Specialisms
- Critical design / thinking
- Collective design strategies and practice in a social context
- Ludic heterotopias (nightclubs)
- Design activism
- Performative Pedagogy
Publications
Art school as a transformative locus for risk in an age of uncertainty
Gale, Cathy, 2020, (19), 1, pp 107-118
Free!* Reclaiming 'freedom' from the neoliberal lexicon
Gale, Cathy, 2019, Message (4)
#AlternativeArtschool // an interstitial space for creative dissent
Gale, Cathy, 2017, (16), 1, pp 99-115
Critical design practice : mapping a new territory for the discipline (or 'Are we nearly there yet?)'
Gale, Cathy, 2016, Message : Communication Arts Research (3), 6/6, pp 85-106
Problem-finding as a research strategy connecting undergraduate learning with staff research in contemporary education institutions
Gale, Cathy, 2015, (14), 2, pp 145-159
Blog post describing HEA funded one day Seminar at Knights Park campus entitled "Collecting as a form of material knowledge across design disciplines: a narrative research method from FE to HE to lifelong learning."
Renton, Lucy and Gale, Cathy, 2014, Higher Education Academy blog
Immediate reaction to David Parkes' provocation
Gale, C. (2020). In: Campbell, L., (ed.), Leap into Action. Peter Lang AG, pp 206-209
Disco Dissent Collective : a performative nexus of the political, subcultural and creative
Gale, Cathy (2020). In: Campbell, Lee, (ed.), New York, U.S.: Peter Lang Publishing, pp 33-44
Wall of words : dialogic activism in collective design
Gale, Cathy (2019). In: Bieling, Tom, (ed.) Mimesis International, pp 139-153
Presentation on Open Educational Resources in FADA
Renton, Lucy, Postle, Paul, Gale, Cathy and Blair, Bernadette(2012). 15 Sep 2012 : Kingston upon Thames, U.K.
Gallery of work
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Design (&) Activism: Perspectives on Design as Activism and Activism as Design
Chapter: WALL OF WORDS: DIALOGIC ACTIVISM IN COLLECTIVE DESIGN
