Our expert staff
We have some of the best teachers across the University in our Essex Pathways Department, all of whom have strong subject backgrounds and are highly skilled in their areas.
Our staff consists of a dynamic group of art historians, curators, and heritage specialists. While our research interests span a range of cultures and media, from the early modern to the present, core specialties include exhibition design, modern and contemporary art, digital heritage, public engagement and activism.
Members of our Human Rights Centre work closely with our alumni and extensive practitioner network to ensure that our research is focused on priority issues that are of direct relevance to beneficiaries such as victims of human rights violations, governments, NGOs, and international organisations such as the UN.
Here are a few examples of recent or current projects by staff members:
Dr Gavin Grindon, Senior Lecturer in Art History and Director of our Centre for Curatorial Studies, recently co-curated Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel in Palestine and the exhibition Disobedient Objects at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, one of the best-attended shows in the museum’s history.
Dr Paola Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco, Lecturer in Heritage and Digital Humanities, has just co-directed a documentary that explores community resilience and sense of place in post-1980 earthquake in Irpinia, South Italy. She is also collaborating with Tymkiw and other colleagues from Essex’s School of Engineering on a project titled Neurocuration, which explores how sound-augmentation affects how people experience virtual museums and exhibits.
Dr Matt Lodder, Senior Lecturer in Art History with an emphasis on modern and contemporary visual culture, recently curated the traveling exhibition British Tattoo Art Revealed and Tattoo: British Tattoo Art Revealed. He is currently co-curating the exhibition Tattoo: Ancient Myths, Modern Meanings, which opens next year in the U.S.
Dr Lisa Blackmore, Senior Lecturer in Art History and Interdisciplinary Studies, currently convenes entre—ríos, an international network of artists, researchers and community representatives across Latin America who collaborate on virtual and in-country projects that explore sustainability challenges facing bodies of water. She has curated exhibitions on art and the environment with the ESCALA collection at Art Exchange, the on-campus gallery.
Dr Michael Tymkiw, Senior Lecturer in Art History, is the author of the 2018 book Nazi Exhibition Design and Modernism and several other research projects concerning the politics of spectatorship in modern and contemporary art and visual culture.