Dr Susannah Haslam is tutor (research) in humanities on the Graduate Diploma in Art & Design programme.
As an interdisciplinary researcher, her practice operates between teaching, writing and organising; research concerns navigate enquiry on the relationship between contemporary education and cultural institutions and infrastructures; queer and critical subjects, pedagogies, practices and environments; tertiary-level educational alternatives and expansions.
Dr Susannah Haslam trained in contemporary art history, theory and visual cultures at Goldsmiths (2006-2010) before completing an AHRC-funded doctorate at the Royal College of Art (2018) on contemporary art’s turn to education after 2008. Prior to joining the RCA, Susannah held teaching positions at London College of Communication, where she initiated a critical reading salon and led undergraduate classes in critical writing practice and queering the gaze in art and design history; and in the visual cultures department at Goldsmiths, where she co-convened the critical spatial practice lab on the MA in contemporary art theory. Susannah has held a fellowship with international research organisation Theatrum Mundi since 2019, where she is contributing to the Making Cultural Infrastructure project. Susannah is an initiator of the extra-disciplinary research collaboration adpe, aiming to better understand the relationship between art, design, policy and education. Between 2010-2018 Susannah was involved in the finding and organisation of independent public projects and programmes such as the reading group and programme of events, Co—; nomadic school and seminar programme and diy publishing project, JOURNEY/SCHOOL and AOTCS Press; and critical spatial practice group, KIOSK collective.
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Research interests
Susannah’s research is centred on enquiry into the complex symbolic and material relationships between institutions and infrastructures; specifically, those institutions and infrastructures that produce, uphold and permeate contemporary art education and, by association, the field of cultural production, its identities, forms and mutations, in the UK, and after 2008. Research is made manifest via teaching, writing and organisational practice, understood as means of making public. Susannah’s research is collaborative and often co-authored in its engagement with ideas and phenomena via extended dialogues and intertexts.
Current and recent research
Unbuilding Infrastructure (2019-present) with adpe.
Making Cultural Infrastructure (2019, 2020-present) with Theatrum Mundi
Education and/as Infrastructure (2018-present).
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Selected public outcomes:
Haslam, S., (2021) Infrastructuring Four Conversations on Cultural Infrastructure. London: TM Editions [book]
Haslam, S., and Clark, T., ‘What if the ground is not art?’ in: MARCH a journal for art & strategy, issue 1 (October 2020) pp.60-70 [essay]
Haslam, S., and Clark, T., (2020) Unbuilding Infrastructure. Basel: Institutions as a Way of Life.
Mezze Pizza (2019) Art Licks radio, 19 October 13:31. Available at: https://www.mixcloud.com/ArtLicks/ (Accessed: 27 April 2020).
‘Homemade Art’, Backstage Production, Civic House, Glasgow. June 2019 [invited panelist].
‘Alternatives to the alternative, or, the undercommons of art(s) education’, Forest Rangers. Jupiter Woods, London. April and May 2019 [invited resident: text and discussion].
Haslam, S., and Clark, T., (2019) ‘Indeterminate—Infrastructure’, SAR International Conference on Artistic Research, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich. March [conference paper].
‘Remaking museums for new cultural politics’, Talking with Neighbours: Reimagining the Institution, Tate Modern, London. 16 February 2019 [panel chair].
NEWS Season School, Berny-Rivière. August 2018 [invited resident].
Haslam, S., and Clark, T., (2018) ‘When asking what one institution (the museum) can offer another (education), what if the answer looks like neither?’ BxNU symposium: In Need of Education, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle. November [conference paper].
Haslam, S., (2018) ‘Writing as Practice’ Visual Pedagogies conference International Association for Visual Culture, London College of Communication, London. September [conference paper].
Haslam, S. (2018) ‘Here we go, here we go …’ School of the Damned: Vision & Signs. Exhibition held at Sluice, London. July [exhibition catalogue].
‘School’s Out’, Turncoat debate part of the Test Unit summer school, Civic House, Glasgow. June 2018 [invited panelist].
‘Alternatives to the alternative art school’ Antiuniversity 2018, London. June [convenor of open meeting].
‘Friendship as Pedagogy — towards a dialogic, hybrid model of arts education’, Teaching Artistic Research symposium, University of Applied Arts, Vienna. May 2018 [conference paper].
The 100% Official Unofficial Open Day for Alternative Art Education, SET Space, London. September 2017 [invited speaker].
South London Tate Late, Tate Modern, London. September 2017 [invited panelist].
Haslam, S., and Mundey, J. (2017) ‘Alternative action(s) as a mode of address knowledge mobility and The IF Project’, in Mateus-Berr, R., and Reitstätter, L. (eds.) Art and Design Education in Time of Change. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 31–35.
Haslam, S., Camargo, A., and Fritz, A., (2017) Structuring Knowledge Mobility From Coworking to Smart Spaces. London: THECUBE.
Haslam, S., and Mundey, J. (2016) In dialogue — knowledge: its movement, value and organisation or, its criticality, values and struggle. Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B501ssnZYQFVblJNMm9SNTdXalk/view (Accessed: 27 April 2020).
Haslam, S., (2016) ‘Towards an Ethics of Intimacy’, Flee Immediately!, 2 Available at: https://fleeimmediately.com/02-danceandcode/susannah/haslam/towards-an-ethics-of-intimacy.html (Accessed: 27 April 2020).
Research Funding
Research Fellowship, Theatrum Mundi (2019, 2020). Supporting research towards the realisation of Talking with Neighbours: Reimagining the Institution at Tate Modern and subsequent research; development of research on cultural infrastructure.
Doctoral Studentship, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UK (2013 – 2017). Supporting the project After the Educational Turn— Alternatives to the alternative art school at the Royal College of Art.
External collaborations
Susannah is currently research fellow with Theatrum Mundi; founding member of adpe; member of the Society for Artistic Research. Collaborations include: Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures, Academy of Art and Design, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland; BxNU Institute; Design School, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London; Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths; Art and Education department at University of Art and Design, Linz; Antiuniversity; Test Unit; Assemble; School of the Damned; Art&Critique; the IF Project; Wysing Arts Centre; Leeds Creative Timebank; Culture Lab, Newcastle University; Imagination Lancaster, University of Lancaster.