About
Dr Saskia Warren is currently working on a three year AHRC funded project entitled Cultural Intermediation and the creative economy. Working on packages 3-5 of the project, her research investigates the governance of the creative economy within Birmingham and how these governance structures intersect with artists, collectives, cultural organisations and different communities. As part of the project she will be facilitating the delivery of new co-designed creative interventions to improve practice in the city-region.
Qualifications
Ph.D. Cultural Geography and Art Theory, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield
MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds
BA (Hons), English Literature and Language, University of Oxford
Biography
Dr Saskia Warren is a cultural geographer, who works on the intersections of social science and the arts. She has a particular interest in the spaces of museums and audiences, with a specialism in modern and contemporary visual art practices. Her Masters dissertation utilised qualitative methods to analyse the English for Speakers of Other Languages program at the British Museum (AHRC funded). In 2011, she completed a Collaborative Doctoral Award in the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, on how audiences engage with art in landscape (AHRC & Audiences Yorkshire funded). From 2011-12 she worked as a research assistant at the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Kingston University, London.
Saskia has extensive professional experience within the arts and museum sector as a researcher, curator and consultant, including projects for Henry Moore Institute, Heritage Lottery Fund, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Collection’s Trust. She has also worked as a consultant for Bradford College on democracy and representation within their Student Union. Prior to undertaking her Masters, she worked in central government as a policy-maker and has since acted as a delegate on regional arts steering groups.
Teaching
Dr Saskia Warren has taught Undergraduate courses on Qualitative Methods and has accompanied Masters-level fieldtrips within the UK.
Research
Cultural Intermediation and the creative economy
Dr Saskia Warren is working with Dr Phil Jones, Dr Beth Perry and Dr Paul Long alongside a wider team investigating processes of cultural intermediation in the creative urban economy. Funded under the AHRC Connected Communities initiative, the research is a joint project between the University of Birmingham, University of Salford, Birmingham City University, Liverpool John Moores University, City University and the University of Cardiff, as well as Visiting Arts.
Audiencing artscapes: encounters between art and audience at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Tailoring a mixture of qualitative methods – archival, visual and ethnographic - to different typologies of audiences (workers, local residents, visitors, volunteers), her doctoral research explored the meaning of art in different people’s lives. The notion of ‘audiencing’ (Fiske 1993) is appropriated to an arts context, whereby audiencing is not the final stage in a linear line of ideation, production and reception, but an entwined process which informs each stage of the development of cultural forms and cultural institutions. Particular contributions are made to the understanding of public spaces and public art, landscape theory and practice and consumption/audiencing.
Other activities
(2012) Consultant on Hidden Treasures Campaign, Collection’s Trust/Independent
Front page of Independent newspaper, Saturday 2 June 2012
(2012) Consultant on representation and democracy report, Bradford College Student Union/National Union of Students, BD7 1AY
(2012) Research Associate and assistant curator, Art, Performance & Activism in Contemporary Japan
http://fada.kingston.ac.uk/index.php
Pumphouse, Battersea, London, 19 Jan – 26 Feb 2012.
(2012) Research Associate and assistant curator, Ernst Eisenmayer: Art Beyond Exile
http://www.acflondon.org/exhibitions/ernst-eisenmayer-art-beyond-exile-private-view/
Austrian Cultural Forum, London, 2 Feb – 23 March 2012; Sayle Gallery, Douglas, Isle of Man, 6 April – 10 May 2012
(2012) Invited referee, Professor Ian Hay (April 2013) Geographies of the Super-Rich, London, Elgar.
(2010) Curator of exhibition, Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Living Heritage of Bretton Estate, West Bretton, Wakefield, WF4 4LG
(2009) British Library Certificated for Oral History
(2008) Consultant on ESOL Programme/The British Museum
Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG
(2008) Exhibition Assistant Stanley Picker Gallery
‘International Orange: Ben Kelly in Collaboration, with Graphic Thought Facility,
Michael Marriott, Morph, Peter Saville & DJ Simpson.’
Kingston University, Knights Park, Grange Road, KT1 2QJ
(2007-2008) Curator of exhibition, Henry Moore Institute
Against Nature: The hybrid forms of modern sculpture’ sister show.
The Headrow, Leeds, LS1 3AH
(2006) Publication Assistant, Public Art Agency
Publications
Warren, S., ‘Audiencing James Turrell’s Deershelter Skyspace: Encounters between art and audience at Yorkshire Sculpture Park’, Cultural Geographies, onlinefirst, September 25 2012, doi:10.1177/1474474012458397.
Warren, S., (April 2012), ‘Phantasmagorical monsters in nature: Joan Miró at Yorkshire Sculpture Park’, Cassone [online].
Warren, S., (December 2008) ‘An Evaluation and Reimagining of the British Museum English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programme’, Museums Education Monitor.
Research assistant:
Riley, B. (2007) Society (London: Steidl)