Saskia Warren

Audiencing Artscapes: encounters between art and audience at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Supervisors: Dr Tariq Jazeel, Dr Jess Dubow, Oliver Mantell (& Co.)
Examiners: Professor Peter Jackson (Sheffield), Professor Phil Crang (RHUL)

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award: Geography Department, University of Sheffield, and & Co., Yorkshire and Humberside

MA Art Gallery & Museum Studies, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds (2008) Distinction
BA (Hons) English Literature & Language, University of Oxford (2006)

This doctoral research explores the ways in which the meanings of site art are inscribed by different audiences and their spatially contingent processes of audiencing. Theoretically and empirically it suggests the importance of the verb ‘audiencing’ over the static noun ‘audience’ to activate the dynamic processes involved in the production of art’s meaning. The thesis is based upon qualitative research undertaken over one year spent at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Yorkshire. It tailors archival, ethnographic and visual methodologies to address how examples of site art within their spatial context are audienced from a range of roles and positionalities. Audiencing is shown to occur non-linearly, with meaning inscribed variously during the processes of making, installation and exhibiting. Overall the research develops understandings of the geographies of art, suggesting how memory, environmental history and situated knowledges are essential to the embodied dimensions of interpreting site art, and exploring the ways in which audiences have read, produced and practiced the local landscape in differently scaled geographical contexts.

Research Interests

Place, space and landscape
Consumption/audiencing
Legacy of conceptualism and site art
Creative industries and cultural policy
Intersections of Art theory and Cultural Geography

Research Grants

AHRC UK Study Visit Award to fund research on local communities of Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2011)
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award Research Studentship with University of Sheffield/ Audiences Yorkshire to fund project on visual arts and audience practices (2008)
Scholarship award Copenhagen Doctoral School and Statens Museum for Kunst (2008)
AHRC Professional Preparation Master’s Scheme Award (2007)
Travel Award, St. Peter’s College, University of Oxford (2004, 2005)

Publications

Warren, S. (2012). Phantasmagorical monsters in nature: Joan Miró at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Cassone (April [online]).
Warren, S. (2008). An Evaluation and Reimagining of the British Museum English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programme. Museums Education Monitor, (December), 13.
Invited referee Professor Hay, I. (2012) Geographies of the Super-Rich, Elgar, London

Consultancy and curatorial work

Bradford College, Consultant on representation and democracy in Student Union (December 2011- ongoing)
Kingston University, Associate Researcher and Curator, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (November 2011- ongoing)

Art, Performance & Activism in Contemporary Japan
http://fada.kingston.ac.uk/index.php
Exhibition at the Pumphouse, Battersea, London, 19 Jan – 26 Feb 2012.
Ernst Eisenmayer: Art Beyond Exile
http://www.acflondon.org/exhibitions/ernst-eisenmayer-art-beyond-exile-private-view
Exhibition at the Austrian Cultural Forum, London, 2 Feb – 23 March 2012; Sayle Gallery, Douglas, Isle of Man, 6 April – 10 May 2012

Heritage Lottery Fund/Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Consultant and Curator (September 2010- September 2011)

Conferences

Audiencing site art: encounters between art and audience at Yorkshire Sculpture Park; invited presentation of doctoral research findings at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 02/2012.
'Representing audience engagements with site-specific artworks: mapping experience and aesthetics at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, England' at the Annual RGS-IBG, 09/2011, London, in the session ‘Collaborative Doctoral Award Showcase’
‘The public geographies and public art of Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s non-urban spaces’ at the Annual RGS-IBG 09/2011, London, in the session ‘Participatory Geographies’
‘Audiencing James Turrell’s Deershelter Skyspace: encounters between site, art, and audience at Yorkshire Sculpture Park’, invited departmental third-year presentation 06/2011.
‘Between the scenes at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, England’, at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meet 04/2011, Seattle, in the session ‘Geographer-Artists- creative practice as research tool? 2. Audiencing’
‘Researching an open air gallery’, invited presentation for University of Huddersfield Arts-Practice Research Festival, 03/2010.
‘Representing audience engagements with contemporary art works: mapping experience and aesthetics at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, England’, invited conference presentation at Copenhagen Doctoral School 11/2009 ‘Event Culture: The Museum and its Staging of Contemporary Art’.
‘Audiencing Conceptual Art’, at University of Sheffield 04/2009), at the conference ‘Lives, Cultures and Environments: Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference’.
‘Geographies of responsibility: Strategies Beyond the Academy,’ invited panel presentation with Professor Doreen Massey at University of Sheffield, 03/2009.
‘Reality Check: Mediation and visitor engagement: re-writing ‘the script?’, participant paper at Copenhagen Doctoral School and Statens Museum for Kunst 04-08/2008, as part of workshop programme ‘The Museum and Contemporary Art: Experience Economy?’.

Professional Memberships

Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers
Association of American Geographers
Association of Art Historians
Delegate on Arts Council of England steering group ‘Turning Point’ on visual art and UK regions.
Delegate on ‘Place-Making’ action research programme 2009/10 in UK regions.

Contact Details

Address: University of Sheffield, Department of Geography, Winter Street, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK
Tel: +44 (0)114 222 7973
Fax: +44 (0)114 222 7907

Email:
Saskia.Warren@Sheffield.ac.uk
warrensaskia@hotmail.com