UCL History of Art Alumni Newsletter Summer 2023

Newsletter Contents

Welcome

• Welcome from our Head of Department

Department News

• New MSc in Conservation of Contemporary Art and Media Launches
• Spotlight on Research Events
• Update from the History of Art Society 2022-23
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Journalists from UCL History of Art

From our Alumni

• Spotlight on Elspeth Rae
• Spotlight on Adomas Narkevičius
• Spotlight on Paz Monge

• Rafaëlle Hassine, Contemporary Art Market Reseach Interviewee Request

Stay in Touch

• Get Involved

Welcome from our Head of Department

Bob Mills
Professor of Medieval Studies
Head of History of Art Department

This year, we’ve been working hard to develop our new MSc Conservation of Contemporary Art and Media, which will accept its first cohort of students this September. This included recruiting two new lecturers with specialism in time-based media conservation (Dr Brian Castriota) and the conservation of sculpture and installation art (Dr Libby Ireland). The programme is directed by Professor Pip Laurenson and will be taught primarily at brand-new facilities in the UCL East campus on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

In the spring, we were delighted to see two of our alums, Sneha Shah (MA 2019) and Roisin Tapponi (MA 2021), recognised in this year’s Forbes 30 for Under 30s list for founding their companies Curaty, which champions art by emerging artists and Shasha movies, which streams diverse movies in countries where this is sometimes censored, respectively.

This was also the second year running that the Department organised a series of short taster courses in the history of art and visual culture aimed at 16–18-year-old state school students. These courses are part of an initiative to diversify the discipline and welcome students from backgrounds not traditionally represented within history of art. This year two brilliant courses were offered, in ‘Art and Protest’ and ‘Queer Art Histories’. Both were fully subscribed, and we hope some of the participants have now been inspired to apply to study history of art at university. 

I hope you enjoy catching up with some other news about the Department and our former students in this newsletter. As always, do contact me or my colleagues if you have any news to share in a future edition!

New MSc in Conservation of Contemporary Art and Media Launches

Pip Laurenson
Professor of Conservation
Director of MSc Conservation of Contemporary Art and Media

Spotlight on Research Events

Tamar Garb
Durning Lawrence Professor
Director of Research

In 2023, we welcomed UCL History of Art alumna Dr Sanjukta Sunderasson (Amsterdam University) to deliver the Tomás Harris Visiting Lecture. In two riveting lectures on decolonial modernisms, she looked at how artworks form part of the archives of anti-and de-colonialism, internationalism and the revolutionary protest movements of the twentieth century from the perspective of South Asia. In addition, Sanjukta convened a research seminar for PhD students looking at the theoretical perspective that underpins her research and engaged with the projects currently being undertaken by PhD researchers in the department.

Our Nikos Stangos Memorial Lecture (2023) was delivered by Professor Anne Anlin Cheng (Princeton University), ‘Strange Life: Apparitions of the Yellow Woman’. Dr Cheng elaborated on her groundbreaking theories of ‘ornamentalism’, looking at the way in which material objects are gendered and racialised in relation to perceptions of the ‘East’, the ‘Orient’ and the ornament. The objectification of Asian women is understood with processes of exoticisation and racialisation. Still, instead of succumbing to the violent reification this entails, Dr Cheng looks at how selected contemporary female artists from East Asia and its diasporas repurpose this ideological construction in creative, witty and often life-affirming ways. While the violence of ‘ornamentalism’ is acknowledged in Professor Cheng’s reading, it does not silence the people it objectifies. 

Update from the History of Art Society 2022-23

Jamila Abdel-Razek, President of the 2022-23 History of Art Society

Beginning with our Winter Social at the start of Term 2, the History of Art Society has had no shortage of events this year. We kicked off the term with an eye-opening film screening and talk hosted by our lecturer, Dr Aparna Kumar, titled, ‘Partition and Pop-Culture: Ms. Marvel and the Legacies of 1947’. Through this, the society was exposed to the collective trauma of the division of the Indian sub-continent through representations of partition in cinema. In conjunction with our film screening series, Lauren Rozenburg, another lecturer in the department, hosted a talk on contemporary adaptations of medieval objects in cinema through the lens of ‘The Secret of Kells’ (2009).  

Also supported and organised by Aparna, but wearing her Careers Tutor hat, we visited the exhibition ‘Dance as you Wrestle’ at Cell Project Space, exhibiting works by Anastasia Sosunova and Agne Jokse, and accompanied by the curator and MA History of Art alumnus, Adomas Narkevičius. This was an incredible experience to hear from the curator while visiting the gallery, with the opportunity to ask career guided questions to a fellow UCL History of Art student. We also visited Ainalayin Space’s exhibition, ‘Preconscious Landscapes’, accompanied by the curators and History of Art alumni, Indira Dyussebayeva-Ziyabek and Phoebe Bradley-White, and the exhibition 'Alice Neel: Hot Off the Griddle' at the Barbican. 

The society was honoured to collaborate with Venetia Jolly, MA History of Art alumnus, art coordinator, advisor and lecturer working in Christie’s Private and Iconic collection. With a focus on decorative arts, Venetia hosted two talks; ‘Interiors and Interior Portraits of the English Country House’ and ‘Material Expressions of Power: The Politics of Furniture’.  

We finished with our End-of-Year Social in the department and announced next year's committee. As outgoing President, I have no doubt the society is in great hands for the next academic year. I will also say another huge 'thank you' to the 2022-23 committee. Finally, it has been fantastic working with more History of Art alumni in 2023. Please do reach out if you’re interested in getting more involved with the current UCL History of Art Society and being part of our events!

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Journalists from UCL History of Art

As part of our ongoing commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), we ran our EDI Student Journalist programme again this year. Five students have put together fantastic pieces which include essays, podcasts, interviews and even an interactive map. Find out about these five talented journalists and read their works.

A selection of their work:

• Crafting Space to Talk, Ana Charriere Alvarez De Ron Interviews Artist Aya Haidar
• 'New Palette' Podcast Series with Wen Xiao
• Change, Challenge and Conversation: How are Podcasts Revolutionizing the Art World? by Natalie Soghomonian
• Yayoi Kusama: Exhibition Review by Savanah James
• PhD Student Journeys, Natalie Soghomonian Interviews Baylee Woodley

Spotlight on Elspeth Rae

BA History of Art, 2008

I graduated from UCL History of Art in 2008 after three incredibly happy years. Shortly after leaving, I set up an experiential events company for creative industries called The Robin Collective. I also took on part-time teaching support roles in schools in East London at this time.

Before I started university, I was working as a child actress. However, by the time I had graduated, my passion for acting had lessened, and I was looking for a more stable career, using what I had learned. In 2012 I joined a big global events company called Media 10, where I became Marketing Manager of their Clerkenwell Design Week event. I loved how I was able to integrate my passion for art and design with my love of live events, so I spent four years there. 

In 2015, in yet another career change, I was offered a job at Endemol Shine UK, one of the world’s biggest TV production companies. I was brought in to run events for their internally owned IP, working with new online digital talent and TV show formats.

Over the next 5 years I worked with, and produced lives shows and short form content for, global YouTubers like DanTDM, KSI, Stephen Tries and WillNE and more. I became a joint MD of a small label within the company and left in 2019 when I was pregnant with my daughter. I was extremely proud of my time there, what I achieved, and the amazing people with whom I worked.

Two years ago, I formed MonRae Management with my incredible business partner, Bronagh. We manage some of the world’s biggest YouTubers and digital first talent. We also own a TV production label making lots of TV for Sky Kids, utilising the contacts we have in the gaming, YouTube and TV world. I love what I do, the flexibility I have in living my life, and how creative I am able to be in my job.

 

Spotlight on Adomas Narkevičius

MA History of Art, 2020

I joined UCL keen to learn contemporary art and regain my faith in it, after arriving slightly burnt out from involvement in multifarious art projects in my native Lithuania, including a demanding four-year stint in the ever-shifting role of Residency Curator at Rupert Centre for Art, Education and Residencies. Pretty soon I felt like I was where I needed to be – my cohort and the department felt warm, yet intellectually stimulating and rigorous.

I finished my MA History of Art during Covid, so I was one of the students who had their UCL studies split into distinctly different halves. However, I received an invitation to work on a satellite exhibition of the Baltic Triennial 14 (2021) back in Vilnius. Titled 'Endless Frontier', the Triennial explored the political in-between state of Central Eastern European regarding 'centre' and 'periphery'. The satellite exhibition I curated directly built upon the core concerns of my MA dissertation, 'Defiant Bodies: Art in the Baltics under the Soviet Rule', such as the impossibility to narrate fractured and otherwise quelled art histories according to the existing art historical frameworks. The sticky frozen time of the pandemic enabled me to ‘hang in there’ in London. Through freelance projects such as the one in Vilnius, I was able to further explore the sense of irresolution of history (sharply underscored by Russia’s full-scale invasion that was being covertly designed) and the Soviet imperial ‘communist’ past that keeps returning to wound the region.

With the theoretical and art historical foundations that my time at UCL and the testing ground provided by the subsequent freelance projects, I started in the Associate Curator role at Cell Project Space, London. A not-for-profit art gallery, it was co-initiated by artists in 1999, and to this day is led by Milika Muritu, one of the co-founders. With renewed belief in the agency of artworks, for 2021-22 I proposed an exhibition programme to consider them as thinking or sensing devices. The MA massively helped me work through my internal struggle to reconcile the floaty world of theory with the material realities of art production, enabling my work at Cell Project Space.

Currently, in the capacity of Curator at Cell, I am co-developing the programmes for 2024, as well as working independently on an exhibition at the MO Museum, a modern art museum, in Vilnius, Lithuania, which will explore sexuality, gender representation and erotic fantasy worlds in the art of the post-war Soviet Baltic region in conversation with contributions from contemporary artists. Opening in March 2024, I am happy to report this project stems directly from my MA dissertation at UCL. If in the Baltics during that time, do come by!

Spotlight on Paz Monge

MA History of Art, 2019

Throughout my MA in History of Art in 2019, I was motivated towards academic excellence and simultaneously cultivated my professional interest in an institutional curatorial career. When I started at UCL, I joined the Venice Biennale curatorial team. I worked on its 58th iteration, having the opportunity to link my academic research at UCL - the canonization of curatorial and exhibition history - with international contemporary art exhibitions, such as documenta, São Paulo Bienal, and in this specific case, the Venice Biennale. 

In 2020, I moved back to Latin America to focus on my independent curatorial practice. During the thick of COVID, I curated the first institutional solo exhibition of renowned Costa Rican painter Federico Herrero at the National Museum of Costa Rica. This exhibition was then awarded the Francisco Amighetti National Prize for Best Exhibition of 2020. That same year, I was appointed director of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in San José, Costa Rica, the only public contemporary art institution in Central America. 

To this day, I am the youngest director appointed in Latin American history.

I was also able to curate several shows while directing the museum, such as Un Proyecto de Tendencias: 30 años de Bienales de Arquitectura en Costa Rica [A project of trends: 30 years of Architecture Biennials in Costa Rica], which showcased an international retrospective exhibition and critically reviewed architectural projects in Central America, showcased by the Architecture Biennial during the past three decades. Un Proyecto de Tendencias was the first exhibition ever about architectural history in the Central American region. This exhibition made me rethink my interest in curatorial and exhibition history through an architectural lens. 

In 2023, I joined the Guggenheim Museum’s curatorial team in Abu Dhabi, managing its curatorial affairs department as the institution prepares to open the Middle East’s pre-eminent museum of global modern and contemporary art.

Rafaëlle Hassine, Contemporary Art Market Reseach Interviewee Request

BA History of Art, 2019

I have collaborated for over a year with artists’ studios, an international primary market gallery, and secondary market dealers. To broaden my perspective, I would like to talk to former UCL students who are now working in the contemporary art market and find out more about their careers and jobs. I want to talk to everyone: beginners and experienced professionals, logisticians and salespeople, gallery and auction house employees, artists’ studio and estates or foundation workers, etc. 

If you would like to contribute to this research by agreeing to interview, please contact me by email or by WhatsApp on +33 6 63 34 46 91. All contributions are confidential and anonymous; real names of artists, workers or companies will NOT be mentioned in the study. A Confidentiality Agreement detailing the use of anonymised research data is given to all participants before the interview. I look forward to hearing from you!

Get Involved

We always want to hear about your exciting projects and careers as UCL History of Art alumni. If you would like to be more involved with us, including in our news or events, please contact Izzie Harvey, Communications and Events Manager. 

Stay updated with our department - we hope to see you again soon.