Dr Sarah Bennett

About

I joined Kingston University in June 2016 as Head of School when the new School of Art and Architecture was established and worked with colleagues in the Departments: Fine Art; Architecture & Landscape; and Film & Photography until 2020. I am now a Visiting Fellow at Kingston School of Art and continue to supervise PhD students. 

My own research interests traverse fine art practice, cultural geography, historic buildings, visual anthropology and museology. I employ a range of artistic research methods and material processes including: digital recording and projection; facsimile object making; observational drawing; and embodied actions. Through these I aim to reveal how diverse institutional systems operate, and to question the level of complicity society affords such systems, i.e. how we are implicated in their continuance. At the same time, in my methods of making and installing work, I endeavour to imbue the artwork with an affective 'charge' that may elicit critical, interpretative and associative responses on the part of the audience. Recent artistic research projects have centred on historical and contemporary institutional archives, with specific focus on nineteenth-century psychiatry. My PhD was completed at Plymouth University in 2010 and disclosed new understandings of the workings of a former asylum, now redeveloped as exclusive housing.

Previous academic leadership positions held include - MA Fine Art Course Director at Exeter School of Art, and Head of Fine Art at Plymouth University where I subsequently became Interim Head of the School of Art and Media before joining Kingston School of Art. I have worked in international HE partnerships with Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, and Transart Institute, NYC. My examiner and adviser roles include Wimbledon College of Art (UAL); Birmingham City University; Gray's School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen; and UWIC. I am a Board member of EQ Arts and have, in that capacity, chaired or been a member of international Accreditation and Quality Enhancement panels in Belgium, Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Lithuania. 

Personal Website:  sarahbennett.org.uk

Academic responsibilities

Visiting Fellow

Qualifications

  • PhD Art and Media, University of Plymouth, 2010
  • BA(Hons) Fine Art, Exeter College of Art and Design, CNAA, 1980
  • Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) 2014

Research