Developing a PhD research question with Dave Gibbons

PhD Seminar Series, 29 November 2023

This week we will be joined by Dave Gibbons, who will be talking to us about his artistic practice as a photographer and collagist (analogue and digital). Many of you will remember Dave from past workshops as part of the PGR programme, and this year’s PGR Gallery Exhibition ‘More Than a Thesis’.

In the second part of the session we will be thinking about and workshopping the process of shaping and revising a PhD research question—something researchers formulate and continue to revisit throughout the PhD process. How do we get from an idea to that initial research question, and how does the question continue to shape the work as we go along?

Following the session (at around 4pm) there will be an opportunity to walk into Winchester to enjoy the Winchester Christmas Market and Christmas lights.

Digital Collage in a Cut and Paste Style

Dave Gibbons is a visual artist who works predominately between photography and collage to seek narratives and explore ideas around emotional attachments to found ephemera and objects. Photographic projects, sometimes spanning over a longer duration serve to explore the collecting of found objects, either as photographs taken in situ, or objects to be photographed within a studio context. These are presented as either single items or as sequences which focus on recurring themes such as memory, nostalgia, life and death.

Collage works sway between tight digital photomontages, which draw inspiration from instructional diagrams to frame seeming disparate images an extensive archive, to papier collĂ© ‘sketches’ that explore the colour and form of everyday detritus.

Dave has worked as a technician at WSA for more than 20 years, and as an artist and maker for even longer. He is currently considering PhD research at Winchester School of Art.