On 12 November, the WSA PhD Seminar is excited to welcome Dr Rachel Hann (Northumbria University, Newcastle), who has extensive experience with practice-based research across Fine Art, Design, and Fashion/Textiles.
Dr Hann’s talk will be on ‘Second wave practice research: managing the institutionalisations of tacit knowledge’ The main concern of what Dr Hann proposes as the ‘first wave’ of Practice Research was to win the right to conduct research through practice from the administrators (university management, HEFCE). The end game of this perspective was, she argues, that it sustains a culture where Practice Research is conducted for the purpose of administration: for evidencing an individual’s research profile to be assessed holistically, by exercises such as the REF. We now need to move beyond the administrative focus of Practice Research, however. Dr Hann is part of a movement suggesting a ‘second wave’ of arts research practice. This talk and subsequent discussion will lay out some strategies and examples for managing the institutionalisations of tacit knowledge, and skills for navigating a practice-based PhD within these institutions.
Dr. Rachel Hann is Associate Professor in Performance and Design at Northumbria University, Newcastle (UK). She researches material cultures of scenography, transness, and climate crisis. Rachel is the author of Beyond Scenography (Routledge 2019) and co-founder of the research network Critical Costume. From 2024-2025, she was PI for an AHRC Fellowship entitled Trans Performance Now. Rachel is also a former Chair of the Theatre and Performance Research Association, a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, and a curator for the Prague Quadrennial 2027. Rachel has examined 11 PhDs as external and supervised 11 to completion.
This session will take place in person in the PhD Common Room (WSA East Side 3024) and online.Â