contact details
email: a.douglas@rgu.ac.uk
tel: 00 44 (0)1224 263647

web site:

www.ontheedgeresearch.org
www.workinginpublicseminars.org
Artist as Leader – site under construction (see OTE site for project overview)

Prof Anne Douglas

Biographical Statement

Anne Douglas studied anthropology at the University of Durham (1968-71) and sculpture at Camberwell School of Art, London (1973-6). She was awarded the Rome Scholarship in Sculpture (1976-8) and Artist in Residence, British School at Rome (1984). After extensive experience of professional practice and teaching, she completed one of the first practice based doctoral research projects at Sunderland University. Her thesis ‘Sculpture as Improvisation‘ (1992) is an articulation of the creative process as a form of improvisation explored in relation to her own production of sculpture. The context for the research was the emergent opportunity for artists to work in the public sphere within processes of post industrial, urban regeneration.

Douglas initiated and directs the On the Edge (OTE) research (2001-present), a strategic research programme within Gray's School of Art and IDEAS Institute concerned with developing the role of the artist in the public sphere through doctoral and post doctoral research.

OTE was launched by an AHRB research grant (2001-4) examining the role of the contemporary artist in relation to remote and rural cultural contexts. This programme has completed two further projects:

The first, The Artist as Leader (2006-9) (http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/subj/ats/ontheedge2/artistasleader/index.html) was a partnership with Performing Arts Labs, London and Cultural Enterprise Office, Scotland; supported by the Scottish Leadership Foundation. This project built a network predominantly in Scotland to debate the issue of leading through the practice of the arts. The first strand of work (AHRC funded) mined through in depth interviews the current experience of selected artists and organisational leaders. The second strand was practice led in the form of a laboratory drawing together arts practitioners, organisational leaders and policy makers, informing organisational and policy change (funded by Scottish Arts Council, Jerwood Foundation and Cultural Leadership, Arts Council England).

The second, Working in Public Seminar series (2006-8), (Scottish Arts Council funded) developed a critical learning space for artists and cultural organisations in partnership with Public Art Resource+ Research, Scotland (PAR+RS). Lacy's Oakland projects (1990-2000) formed a significant case study with contributions from Grant Kester, University of San Diego, California; Tom Trevor, Director of the Arnolfini Gallery and Simon Sheikh, critical theorist and curator Malmo Academy of the Arts.

Since 2008 Douglas has been a Research Fellow at the Orpheus Institute of Musical Research, Ghent, Flanders. In 2009 she co-authored with Kathleen Coessens and Darla Crispin, The Artistic Turn: a Manifesto, University of Leuven Press exploring artistic research as a space to develop new forms of artistic practice (performing and visual). At present she is developing new research on improvisation as embodied knowledge with Coessens focused on a new body of artistic work, Calendar Variations (2010-onwards).

In 2006-9 Douglas oversaw the evaluation of Phase 2 Art Commissions at Aberdeen Children's Hospital.

Anne gained a professorial title in 2007.


Personal Statement

My artistic practice has undergone a transition from ‘maker of objects’, artistic practice as an individually authored activity, to ‘maker of enabling conditions’ through the development of focused art projects/art discourse from a research base. Formal research offers an important framework for sharing explicit, radical questions on the value of art with different individuals from the arts as well as other disciplines and sectors of society.

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