About the Project
This fully funded PhD project is part of the North-Sea Heritage in Transitions (NHT) AHRC Doctoral Focal Award between the University of Aberdeen, University of the Highlands and Islands, and Robert Gordon University, addressing the role of art history, visual arts and creative practice in a region undergoing cultural transition. NHT supports place-based doctoral research to strengthen and empower a regionally-significant cultural workforce for a national and international creative economy.
Based at Gray’s School of Art, RGU, this PhD is supervised by Dr Jen Clarke and, where appropriate, a specialist technical supervisor, alongside Dr Jo Vergunst at the University of Aberdeen.
How can artistic research make heritage otherwise?
With this PhD project, making heritage otherwise means using artistic practice not only to represent or preserve the past, but to work across unstable boundaries—between the living and the mineral, the natural and the artificial—questioning how materials are classified, valued and cared for, and opening different possibilities for their futures.
Across the North Sea region, transitions in energy, industry, land use and climate are changing not only landscapes and livelihoods, but the meanings and possible futures of the materials through which places are made, remembered and valued. Geological, mineral, marine-derived, biological and industrial materials can carry histories of extraction, labour, craft, migration, ecology and decay. They also move through buildings, museums, archives and collections, where they are classified, conserved, displayed or discarded as heritage.
The applicant will develop a focused project around a material ecology, practice, place or process, exploring how materials participate in environmental, cultural and industrial change. The research might ask how distinctions such as organism and artefact, natural and artificial, resource and waste shape what is collected, valued, preserved or allowed to disappear. Anthropological approaches will support attention to the social lives of materials: how they are extracted, worked, exchanged, classified and cared for, and how different communities and institutions understand their significance. Artistic practice will offer ways of intervening in these processes and testing heritage beyond human-centred ideas of preservation, conservation, and representation. The work should relate broadly to the North Sea region, but may follow materials, practices and histories beyond it, where this sharpens the enquiry.
We particularly welcome research-based artists, including artist-anthropologists whose practice begins with sustained attention to materials, transformations and processes. A project might follow geological, marine-derived, biological or industrial materials across extraction, production, circulation, use, collection, conservation, reuse and decay. It could examine how materials acquire different meanings within working landscapes, communities, buildings, museums or heritage collections; explore the material afterlives of changing industries and infrastructures; or investigate emerging forms of biomaterial practice. The project does not prescribe a single material, medium or case study, but it does require a coherent research question in which making is a primary mode of inquiry. Practice may involve sculpture, installation, moving image, photography, sound, animation, socially engaged work or other forms, supported by archival and historical research, ethnographic or participatory fieldwork, and site-responsive collaboration.
Scottish Sculpture Workshop (SSW) is a potential project partner. Its role would be developed with the successful applicant and might include specialist workshops, technical knowledge, material experimentation, mentoring or public-facing activity. Connections may also be developed with relevant communities, material producers, heritage organisations, archives, environmental groups and university research on marine habitats and offshore energy infrastructure directly support the project.
The successful student will join the interdisciplinary NHT cohort, with training in artistic and material research, ethnographic and sensory approaches, heritage theory, ethics, digital methods and professional development.
Year 1 will refine the site, materials and questions; Years 2–3 will centre on fieldwork and creative experimentation, with the final year dedicated to completing an integrated body of artistic work and written thesis. Potential outcomes include exhibitions, installations, films, sculptural works, material experiments, public workshops and academic publications. Together, these will demonstrate how artistic practice does more than represent heritage: it tests the categories and intervene in the material relations through which heritage is continually made and unmade.
The studentship benefits from NHT’s bespoke training programme developed by the partner institutions and international project partner, the University of Stavanger. Further information is available on our website.
Candidate Background
Applicants should have a strong first degree (minimum 2:1 or equivalent) and a Master's degree in Fine Art, Art and Design, visual anthropology, visual or material culture studies, related fields, or equivalent professional experience.
We are seeking an applicant with an established and critically engaged artistic practice, ideally involving sustained material or site-responsive enquiry. This may include sculpture, and/or work with materials such as stone, clay, glass, metals, marine or biological materials, but practices incorporating moving image, photography, sound, installation or socially engaged methods are equally welcome where they form part of a coherent material research approach. Applicants should include a link to an online portfolio in their application, demonstrating the development, methods and critical context of their creative practice.
Applicants should be able to identify a viable focus, such as a material ecology, practice, place or process; articulate how artistic practice will work as research and generate new knowledge; engage confidently with critical theory and contextual research; and work independently and collaboratively.
For further information please contact Dr Jen Clarke (j.clarke5@rgu.ac.uk).
Promoting equality, diversity and inclusion is core to the AHRC North-Sea Heritage in Transitions Doctoral Focal Award. We actively encourage applications from diverse career paths, backgrounds, and all sections of the community, regardless of age, disability, race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation and transgender status, amongst other protected characteristics.
We also invite applications from those returning from a career break, professional practice or other roles. We typically require a minimum 2:1 in your first degree, but exceptions can be made where applicants can demonstrate excellence in alternative ways, including, performance in master’s courses, professional placements, internships or employment experience – this will be considered on a case-by-case basis. We offer flexible study arrangements such as part-time study; however this depends on the nature of the project and will be assessed individually.
Application Procedure
The application procedure is availiable here.
Project ID: NHT_RGU_JC
Funding Notes
This fully funded, 42-month PhD project is offered through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) North Sea Heritage in Transitions Doctoral Focal Award.
The studentship provides an additional six months for placements, work experience, or writing up. It is open to UK and international applicants, but international recruitment via AHRC funding is capped at 30%.
Funding covers tuition fees, a tax-free stipend at the applicable UKRI rate (£21,383 for the 2026/27 academic year), and access to a Research Training Support Grant for research activities.
Please note we cannot fund visa costs or healthcare surcharges for international students.
References
- Barad, K. (2007), Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke Uni. Press.
- Bennett, J. (2010), Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press.
- Chen, M. Y. (2012), Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect. Duke University Press.
- Clarke, J. (2014), ‘Disciplinary Boundaries Between Art and Anthropology’, Journal of Visual Art Practice, 13(3), pp. 178–191.
- Clarke, J. (2020), ‘Apocalyptic Sublimes and the Recalibration of Distance: Doing Art-Anthropology in Post-Disaster Japan’, in P. Schorch, M. Saxer and M. Elders (eds), Exploring Materiality and Connectivity in Anthropology and Beyond. London: UCL Press, pp. 172–190.
- Clarke, J. and Yazdani, J. (2021), ‘Archiving and Imagination in an Intertidal Zone’, Roadsides, 5: Archive, pp. 50–59.
- DeSilvey, C. (2017), Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving. University of Minnesota Press.
- Ingold, T. (2013), Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. Routledge.
- Lange-Berndt, P. (ed.) (2015), Materiality: Documents of Contemporary Art. London: Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press.
- Loroño-Leturiondo, M. and Olazabal, M. (2025), ‘The Underexplored Potential of the Arts in Environmental Social Sciences’, Environmental Science & Policy, 172.
- Loveless, N. (2019), How to Make Art at the End of the World: A Manifesto for Research-Creation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Povinelli, E. A. (2016), Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism. Duke University Press.
- Syperek, P. and Wade, S. (2024), ‘Oceanic Curating’, Environmental Humanities, 16(3), pp. 680–691.
- Graham, H. and Vergunst, J. (eds) (2019) Introduction: Heritage as Community Research: Legacies of Co-production. Bristol: Policy.
- Yusoff, K. (2018), A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. University of Minnesota Press.
This is a Preview Listing…
You must sign in to see the full job description, and to apply.
Manage / Upgrade this job to a Full Job Listing.
Find Your Best Opportunity
Tell them AcademicJobs.com sent you!