Richard Nash
- Senior Tutor (Research)
- Art & Design Graduate Diploma
- Co-chair
-
Artists Publishing Research Group
Richard has 30 years’ experience as a practitioner, educator and researcher. Richard’s research and practice centres on experimental and artists’ publishing.
Richard is Senior Tutor (Research) on the Graduate Diploma Art and Design, Academic Lead for Executive Education programmes, and co-chairs the RCA Artists Publishing Research Group. Richard has an MA in Graphic Design, PGCE, and has obtained Senior Fellowship (SFHEA), Advance HE. Richard has delivered talks and exhibited nationally and internationally and has publications and artists' books in a number of collections.
Key details
Gallery
More information
Research interests
Richard’s practice is rooted in the artists’ book as a primary medium and form of radical publishing. Experimental and collaborative in approach, Richard’s artists’ books and publications are often centred on positioning the book as a research method, combining traditional bookmaking craft with design and technology. Richard’s bookworks and publications take a range of forms, from animation to 3D sculptural objects.
As an enduring concern, Richard’s work explores the permeable boundaries of typography, poetry and the poetic, through experimenting with the expressive and material potentials of the written word. Richard is interested in the act and performance of writing and reading, and to explore a new status and performative space for words. Richard’s approach to writing as a visual arts practice draws on contemporary typography, experimental and conceptual writing strategies and concrete poetry. Poetic statements, visual wordplay and textual marks form a visual language and anchorage through his works, artists’ books and publications
Awards
Finalist KALEID 2016, Oslo
Current and recent projects
2019-26 – Space in Mind.
Space in Mind, led by the RCA Helen Hamlyn, explores neurodivergent staff and student experiences of RCA campuses and how this informs the design of public spaces.
2019-26 – The special collection, artists' publishing and institutional memory.
Investigating special collections held in UK art schools and institutions through archival and collections research and interviews with practitioners, academics and archivists. The core concern of the research focuses on preserving knowledge pertaining to the special collection as a form of institutional memory and a history of artists' publishing practice in UK art and design education.
Previous Research Projects
2024-25 – Digital Good / Bad
2022-23 – RE: Infinite Dialogue
2020-21 – Co-producing knowledge about location-based virtual reality experiences
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Journal Articles
Nash, R. (2024) Navigating co-creation and collaboration through artists’ publishing. The Blue Notebook, 19(1).
Nash, R., Clough, G., Beel, A., Haslam, S., Knight, A., Parmar, A., Shon, K. H., Young, I. (2024) Artists’ books as a qualitative research methodology in multidisciplinary contexts. Visual Communication, 24(4).
Nash, R., Yamada-Rice, D., Dare, E., Love, S., Main, A., Potter, D., Rodrigues, D. (2021) Using a Collaborative Zine to Co-Produce Knowledge About Location-Based Virtual Reality Experiences. Qualitative Research Journal, 21(2).
Collections
Richard has artists’ books and bookworks in a number of collections, including:
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford;
Joan Flasch Artists’ Books Collection, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago;
Metropolitan Museum, New York; MoMA, New York;
Artists’ Book and bookRoom collections, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham;
Special Collection, University of Kent, Canterbury;
Wellcome Library, London; Special Collection,
Wimbledon College of Art, London.
Exhibitions
2025
Booked 2025. The Cable Factory. Helsinki, Finland.
2023
Art of Research VIII. Conference and Exhibition. Espoo, Finland.
2022
Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’Abolira l’Appropriation. Jesus College, Cambridge and Bower Ashton Library, Bristol, UK.
2019
Eighthwonder Summer Show – ‘(a)muse’. 44AD Artspace. Bath, UK.
2017
Making Time. Theoretical Archaeology Group. Cardiff, UK.
2016
Kaleid Artists’ Book Exhibition. Kunsthøgskolen. Oslo, Norway.
Prescriptions. The Beaney House of Art & Knowledge. Canterbury, UK.
2014
Beyond the Book. Long and Ryle gallery, London and Devon Guild of Craftsmen, UK.