Contemporary Art Research Group (CARG)
Innovative research driving forward the boundaries of contemporary art practice and thought.
Why Kingston University is great for contemporary art research
Kingston University’s contemporary art research is internationally recognised for its bold, innovative approach. Our researchers explore how art interacts with today’s world, creating meaningful connections across disciplines and sparking new ideas in creative practices.
From groundbreaking collaborations to thought-provoking research outputs, our work spans an exciting range of topics. These topics include experimental publishing, participatory practices, and the transformative power of art in public spaces. Our community thrives on experimentation, embracing projects which challenge the status quo and inspire dialogue.
Whether you're a prospective researcher or just curious, you'll find an active and welcoming environment that supports creativity and critical thinking. Discover more about how our work is reshaping the landscape of contemporary art.
Our research
Explore key areas of our contemporary art research
Delve into a wide range of innovative publications and artistic projects produced by our researchers. From critical essays and books that challenge artistic norms to exhibitions and installations that push creative boundaries, our outputs highlight Kingston University’s commitment to thought leadership in contemporary art. Key outputs include contributions to journals, experimental artworks and interdisciplinary collaborations that redefine how art interacts with today’s world.
Research outputs
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Adam Gillam, Senior Lecturer/Course Leader BA Fine Art
Revelling in material and visual flippancy, Adam Gillam fidgets, probes and tweaks the abundant dark matter of studio experimentation and collected pound-shop tat. The resulting images, objects and accumulations present a potential, momentary resolution between improvisation and refinement.
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Alexis Teplin, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art
Alexis Teplin's practice is routed in painting and performance that extends to include sculpture and large scale installation. Concerned with the language of abstraction, Teplin constructs performative installations based in seduction, artificiality and cultural signification.
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Andrea Stokes Associate Professor, Fine Art
My research is through a Fine Art practice that uses video, drawing and publication to interrogate space and place, informed by a feminist politic that treats ourselves, our bodies and histories as material.
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Dean Kenning, Research Fellow in Fine Art
There are two main aspects to my art practice. Firstly art as a form of generative exploratory communication and thinking through drawing. This includes allegorical and diagrammatic based philosophical, political and economic investigations such as the Metallurgy and Capital projects, as well as the pedagogical Social Body Mind Maps. Secondly, material object based work that is compulsive, humorous and engages a B-movie horror aesthetic. In particular my kinetic rubber and sound sculptures. The two aspects come together most clearly in video and performance work. I often work as part of art groups. My work has been shown at the ICA, Grundy Art Gallery, BAK and the Whitechapel Gallery.
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Elizabeth Price, Professor of Fine Art
London-based artist Elizabeth Price (British, b. 1966) creates richly multi-layered narrative moving image works made specifically for gallery environments. Often beginning with research undertaken in archives and museum collections, Price draws on varying references, such as architectural sites, social and political histories, as well as and the language of advertising copy.
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Henry Bond, Senior Lecturer
Research interests: Virilio's prism of military strategy, military tactics, and defense organisation is my current focus with a monograph book on this topic forthcoming 2020-21.
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Jo Addison, Head of the Department of Fine Art
The relationship between objects and the body, and of objects to one another is intrinsic to the haptic and spatial curiosity at the heart of Addison's sculptural research. Drawing from Bruno Latour, James Elkin, Jane Bennet's theories on things, and Tim Ingold and Richard Sennet's writing on making, she implements methods by which her decisions are governed by the behaviour of materials.
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Lucy Renton, Associate Professor
Lucy Renton studied Fine Art at St. Martin's School of Art and the Royal College of Art, and is currently working towards a Professional Doctorate in Fine Art at the University of East London.
Lucy's research addresses the experience of excess in colour, repetition, and ornament, with recent artworks using an expanded definition of printmaking, drawn and painted figure and line, and appropriated domestic objects and patterns.
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Mandy Ure, Dean of Kingston School of Art
In Mandy Ure's paintings there is an absurd investment, a committed doubt, in producing paintings that address temporality, belief and scepticism in a painting's ability to signify anything. Her paintings rehearse the rhetoric of painting, using the precedents and conventions of mark making, picturing and construction.
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Mark Harris, Associate Professor in Fine Art
Mark Harris' key area of research and specialism is the history of the printed image and the processes and journey it takes through reproduction, translation and documentation. His own practice is informed by the language of print, using discarded publications as material to create collages, sculptures and multiples that explore themes of Utopian landscapes and interpretations of unrealised architectural schemes and models.
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Mike Nelson, Professor of Fine Art
Mike Nelson's work has centred on the transformation of narrative structure to spatial structure, and on the objects placed within them, immersing the viewer and agitating their perception of these environments.
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Roman Vasseur, Senior Lecturer
My artworks, curatorial projects and writing redeploys fragments of cinema, architecture and cultural narratives to explore conflicting or transitional materialities and economies. The transportation of a crate of earth from Transylvania to Los Angeles via London and New York resulted in the merging of a gothic fiction with the banalities of transporting a material to its cinematic point of origin.
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Sarah Bennett, Associate Professor
In her artistic research Bennett critiques the historical and contemporary contexts of psychiatric provision through embodied actions, digital recording methods and site-based interventions. Her four channel video installation Safe-keeping (Custodia) (2014) was developed through an invitation to work on an interdisciplinary and international research project Geographies of affect and memory at the Museo Laboratorio Della Mente, in Rome.
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Volker Eichelmann, Associate Professor, Director of Postgraduate Research CARC
In 1925, Stephen Tennant (1906–1987), perhaps the most intriguing of England's ‘Bright Young Things', contemplated a novel about "high life with a capital H & full of crude impossibilities". He favoured amongst other titles The Monkey House, as well as Gutters of Gold.
Explore our research projects
Our diverse research projects bring together artists, academics and institutions to create pioneering work. These initiatives explore themes such as public engagement, experimental methodologies, and the role of art in addressing societal challenges. Projects such as We Are Publication and community-driven artistic practices showcase how our researchers are shaping the future of contemporary art by merging creativity with critical inquiry.
Additional research projects include:
- Dora publication: a collaborative project between Dorich House Museum and three Kingston School of Art research centres. Drawing inspiration from Dora Gordine's legacy, it explores women's creative practices through ideas, images, and words, fostering international dialogue and intellectual exchange. Find out more
- Random Acts: A series of Random Acts commissions for Channel 4, plus a programme of related events at the ICA. Find out more
Discover We Are Publication
We Are Publication is a unique experimental publishing platform that combines artistic and academic practices. This initiative engages artists, writers and curators in exploring alternative approaches to creating and disseminating knowledge. Through podcasts, zines, live events and digital media, the platform fosters a vibrant space for discussion and innovation, challenging traditional publishing norms and offering new ways to experience contemporary art.
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Diagram of an Hour Vinyl record by We Are Publication
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Diagram of an Hour Radio Broadcast Diagram of an Hour - Scoring, Composition, Publication
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We Are Publication events
Contemporary art research highlights
Pioneering research outputs
Our researchers produce exceptional outputs, from experimental publishing to influential essays. These outputs not only shape artistic discourse, but also influence creative industries globally.
Innovative projects redefining creativity
With projects like We Are Publication, we’re rethinking how contemporary art engages with audiences. This collaborative initiative brings together artists, writers and curators to explore new publishing forms.
Collaboration at its heart
Kingston’s contemporary art research fosters collaboration with other universities, art institutions and communities, creating work that resonates far beyond the academic sphere.
Get in touch
Have questions or want to get involved? Contact us to learn more about our contemporary art research opportunities.