Based in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, the Centre for Visual Cultures (CVC) is an interdisciplinary centre for cutting-edge research.
‘Visual Cultures’ is a broad term encompassing all forms of visual practice and visual media: fine art and sculpture, photography, film, illustration and design, installation and performance.
The emphasis on ‘cultures’ reflects our acute sensitivity to cultural influences and difference, as well as well our commitment to the cultural specificities of visually oriented art work and its material modes of production and reception (geographical location, period, aesthetics, ideology).
The Centre provides an inclusive and dynamic forum for scholars, practitioners and curators from within and beyond the University. Our distinctive focus is on interartistic and intermedial approaches embracing art history, photography, film and video, as well as on theoretical issues around visuality and materiality, word and image relations, curatorship and accessibility. Through regular research seminars and projects, training workshops, talks and colloquia, as well as informal dialogues and exchanges on our multiple platforms, the Centre aims to celebrate the exciting development of visual cultures while also attempting to redefine and contest accepted notions of visuality.
We are always looking for new members and to extend our knowledge of research in the discipline of visual cultures. If your research resonates in any capacity with the above, please do get in touch. We'd love to welcome you to our next meeting and/or to have you on board the CVC team!
Image shows a red girder sculpture, K-Piece by Mark di Suvero, on grass with mono portrait on a wall in distance for the exhibition Arp: the Poetry of Forms at Kröller-Müller Museum, Netherlands. Professor Eric Robertson co-curated the exhibition, which was also hosted by Turner Contemporary, Margate.