Skip to main content

Staff Profile

Dr Emma Coffield

Background

Background

I am a Lecturer in Museum, Gallery and Heritage Studies, having previous worked in the School of Arts and Cultures (SACS) at Newcastle University as an Academic Fellow (2016), Teaching Fellow (2015), Research Assistant and Teaching Associate (2014) and Graduate Teaching Assistant (2012).

I mainly teach on the MA/PGDip programmes in Art Museum and Gallery Studies, Museum Studies and Heritage Studies.

My research has two main strands. The first focuses on artist-run/led practices and forms of self organisation, with a particular focus on meanwhile space. The second concentrates on 'employability' in the cultural and creative industries.

Prior to joining MCH I worked as an English Language teacher (in Newcastle and Madrid) and for a number of theatres, art museums, galleries and festivals in the UK, including the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art (GI), the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Durham Art Gallery, the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) and the Theatre Royal (Glasgow).

Roles and responsibilities

Employability and Enterprise Lead for SACS: 2019 - current

I am part of an interdisciplinary working group concerned with artist-led practice, with colleagues David Butler, Dr Paul Richter, Dr Ed Wainwright, Dr Rebecca Prescott and Rebecca Huggan. I am also part of the Graduate Development Hubs Steering Group with colleagues from the NewBridge Project (https://thenewbridgeproject.com/events/the-collective-studio/).

From 2017-18 I was a member of the SACS Athena Swan committee. From 2012-2018 I co-convened the Cultural Significance of Place (CSoP) Faculty Research Group.

Qualifications

AHRC sponsored PhD in Museum Studies (Artist-Run Initiatives: A Cultural Study of Artistic Production) -  Newcastle University, 2015

MA in Art Museum and Gallery Education - Newcastle University, 2009

BA (Hons) in Fine Art (Painting and Printmaking) - Glasgow School of Art, 2006

Research

Research Interests

Much of my work focuses on artist-run/led initiatives and self-organised practices - or informal groups, collectives and organisations run by and for artists. My work here tends to be collaborative and transdisciplinary, such as the collection of projects run under the 'More Than Meanwhile Spaces' banner, which aim to foster long-term, co-developed futures for artist-run/led initiatives in the North East of England. You can find out more about this work here: https://morethanmeanwhile.wordpress.com

I am also developing work that argues against the dominant reading of artist-run practice as having a 'culture in common', which tends to construct artist-run practice via generalisation, stereotype and assumption, and can obscure more specific meanings and values as attributed by those involved. Instead, I argue for more critical and sociologically aware approaches capable of recognising difference, complexity and tension (e.g. artist-run initiatives can  both compound and resist structural inequalities in the field, and so are not a guaranteed 'good thing' for all) while upholding their potential significance and value and making a case for the continued urgency of self-led, informal and grassroots creative practice. 

More recently, I have worked with my colleague Dr Katie Markham and others to critically explore 'employability' in the cultural and creative industries, specifically in relation to current teaching practices as well as issues of inequality, belonging and creative entrepreneurship. 

I am interested in the everyday experiences of contemporary art practitioners, and the impact of social relationships, spatial politics, cultural precedents and politics and organisational affiliations on contemporary art practice. 

A co-authored book, Art Museum and Gallery Studies: The Basics, was published with my colleagues Prof Rhiannon Mason and Alistair Robinson in 2018. 

While my work is rooted in museum studies I draw extensively upon material from a number of related fields including cultural sociology, the sociology of art, art history, business studies, cultural geography, and identity theory. I also have strong interests in place, space and the geographies of knowledge construction, as well as art education and learning theory. 

Research / impact projects

PI - Engaging the Grassroots Art Sector with the Clayton Street Corridor (£15,334.90) Funded by Newcastle City Council. March 2022-December 2022 with Dr Paul Richter, Dr Rebecca Prescott, David Butler, Dr Loes Veldpaus, Prof Venda Pollock, Andrew Rothwell, Ed Banks, Rebecca Huggan, Tom Hopkin, Lee Etherington, Nadia Iftkhar, Hannah Marsden and Daniel Newberry https://morethanmeanwhile.wordpress.com/the-clayton-street-corridor/

PI - Re-thinking employability during COVID-19: Exploring graduate outcomes and experiences in the museum, gallery and heritage sector (£1,364) SACS Funded. March 2020-December 2020 with Dr Katie Markham (PI) and Jess Crossby (Co-I).

PI - More Than Meanwhile Collaboration (£5,000). ESRC IAA, October 2020 - March 2021 with Dr Paul Richter, Rebecca Huggan, David Butler, Dr Rebecca Prescott, and The NewBridge Project

CI - Mapping Gateshead (£7,598.85). ESRC IAA, November 2020 - March 2021 with Dr Rebecca Prescott, Dr Alexander Wilson, Gateshead Council and GT3 Architects. 

PI - More Than Meanwhile Spaces II (£11,509.28). ESRC IAA, April 2019 - March 2020 with Dr Paul Richter, Rebecca Huggan, David Butler, Dr Edward Wainwright, Dr Rebecca Prescott, The NewBridge Project and Newcastle City Council https://morethanmeanwhile.wordpress.com/mtms-ii/

PI - Beyond Employability: Enabling Professional Cultural Identities (£9,506). SACS funded, April 2018 - July 2019

PI - More Than Meanwhile Spaces: Long-Term Business Models for Artists in the City (£5,075). ESRC IAA, March 2018-March 2019 with Dr Katie Markham, Dr Paul Richter, Rebecca Huggan, David Butler, Dr Edward Wainwright, Dr Rebecca Prescott and The NewBridge Project. https://morethanmeanwhile.wordpress.com/mtms-i/

PI - Early Career Academic Fellowship. SACS funded, September 2018-May 2020.

CI - Paths Across Waters (£3,214). Being Human (incl. SSRF/HCA grants). March 2017 - November 2017

RA - Artist Rooms Interfaces (£2,206) SSRF funded with Professor Christopher Whitehead. June 2015 - May 2016. 

Exhibitions

Paths Across Waters: Lost Stories of Tyneside and the Caribbean (2017) - An exhibition and event series designed and curated in collaboration with Dr Vanessa Mongey (History Classics and Archaeology) and Old Low Light Heritage Centre as part of Being Human, the UK's only national festival of the humanities. 

Newcastle City Futures: People Place Change (2015) - A multi-media exhibition and events series with colleagues Prof. Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Anne Fry, Dhruv Sookhoo and David Mitchell (School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape) that explored built (and unbuilt) heritage in Newcastle/Gateshead in the post 1940s up to the present. Winner of the Royal Town Planning Institutes's 'Chair's Award' in 2015. The project also informed the report Newcastle City Futures 2065: Anchoring Universities in Cities through Urban Foresight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhsNsS4iHZU


Teaching

I contribute to a wide range of teaching, which includes:

Undergraduate Teaching

One-off sessions for students in Media, Communication & Cultural Studies, Art History, and as part of the PARTNERS Summer School.

Postgraduate Teaching

I am the Art Museum and Gallery Studies MA Course Leader, and (commonly) lead the following modules:

  • MCH8551 - Working on a Project: Art Museum and Gallery Studies
  • MCH8502 - Management Practices
  • MCH8516 - Museum, Gallery, Heritage Practice

I also contribute to teaching more broadly as part of the Art Museum and Gallery / Museum / Heritage Studies MA degree programmes offered by Media, Culture, Heritage (MCH), including:

  • MCH8501 - Understanding Challenges
  • MCH8504 - Caring for Collections
  • MCH8599 - Research Dissertation 
  • MCH600 - Professional Practice and Research
  • MCH601 - Vocationally Orientated Project

As part of this work I have supported students to produce the following public exhibitions: Headspace (Laing Art Gallery, 2018), S[he] (Laing Art Gallery, 2017), The Possibility Of... (Laing Art Gallery, 2016), as well as Shifting Styles (The Hatton Gallery, 2020 - cancelled due to COVID-19). 

In the past, I co-led/contributed to the following:

  • ICS8005 - Art Curatorship 1: Working with histories, objects and agendas (module co-leader)
  • ICS8006 - Art Curatorship 2: Exhibitions and exhibiting (module co-leader)
  • Communication and Interpretation - ICCHS MA e-learning course
  • Art Museum and Gallery Education 1
  • Art Museums and Gallery Education 2

    Research Supervision

    I supervise a number of BA and MA dissertations for students in MCH and Art History, and contribute to the Showcase OFFSITE module offered by HaSS to creative practice PhD researchers. 

    I currently supervise the following doctoral research/creative practice projects:

    • A Practice-Based Study of value in Artist-Run Initiatives - Daniel Goodman

    Awards

    I successfully completed the Newcastle Teaching Award in 2019 and am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.


    Publications