Josie Cockram
Course Lead, MA Fine Art (Online)
Josie is an artist, Senior Lecturer and contemporary art curator based in Devon, UK. As Course Leader, Module Lead and Final Major Project Supervisor on MA Fine Art Online, she is interested in pedagogies that aim to build knowledge cooperatively, create space for a breadth of voices and experiences, and acknowledge the contingency of the social and ecological conditions we are working within. It is important to her that the methodologies of her teaching activate the critical discourses that students are invited to participate in and embrace experimentation.
Her teaching is informed by a studio practice that addresses embodied experiences of sound and gendered experiences of space. Her work is born of her training in sculpture and materially involves photographic print, moving image, sculpture and sound. She has a postgraduate diploma from the Royal Academy Schools, London; a BA(Hons) Fine Art: Sculpture from UAL Camberwell College; and a Foundation Diploma from Falmouth University where she first enrolled at art school after studying for a BA in Literature at Cardiff University.
She has a postgraduate teaching certificate in academic practice (PGCAP) and is an HEA Associate Fellow. She taught for many years on MA Fine Art at the University of Plymouth, as a Lecturer in Contemporary Art and Curation at the University of Exeter - where she supported the launch of MA Curation - and as a Visiting Lecturer in Fine Art on UG and PG programmes at a number of UK universities, including University of the Arts London.
A key strand of Josie’s practice-based research is her work as a curator of contemporary art programmes. She has produced exhibitions and events for galleries and arts organisations in London and the South West and founded funded independent projects, including Aller Aller (formerly Aller Park Studios), an artist-led public programme of experimental events initiated with Keiko Yamamoto, and now in development for a new, nomadic iteration with Eve Ess.
In Cornwall, Josie worked at CAST in Helston, Cornwall, to coordinate and produce the Groundwork programme with Director Teresa Gleadowe. A three year project, Groundwork brought exceptional international art and artists to the region, culminating in a five month season of critically acclaimed exhibitions and events in 2018. With an emphasis on moving image, sound and performance, the programme presented new commissions and celebrated works by artists including Steve McQueen, Francis Alÿs and Tacita Dean.
Josie’s professional experience includes evaluating contemporary art projects for funding reports on a freelance basis. And she is a researcher on the Board of Directors for Skylark.fm, a unique FM radio station for Dartmoor that gives voice to the landscape, founded by Lucinda Guy.
External Links
Qualifications
Qualifications
| Year | Qualification | Awarding body |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Postgraduate teaching certificate in academic practice (PGCAP, Stage 1) | University of Plymouth |
| 2015 | Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art Practice | Royal Academy Schools, Royal Academy of Arts |
| 2011 | BA (Hons) Fine Art: Sculpture | UAL, Camberwell College |
Research Interests
Research interests and expertise
My current research is concerned with decentering arts pedagogy through digitality, informed particularly by Édouard Glissant’s thinking about the ethics of opacity and invisibility, Doreen Massey’s writing about space, place and simultaneity, and Luce Irigaray’s thinking about the primacy of listening in teaching. I am committed to anti-oppressive pedagogies that can enable us to make together when not in the same, proximate place; teaching experimental practice, at a distance, out of sync.
My pedagogical research is informed by a long-term enquiry within my studio practice into embodied experiences of sound and gendered experiences of space. My work is born of my training in sculpture and materially involves photographic print, moving image, sculpture and sound. Within the work there is slippage of objectness, imageness and voice – the practice values contingency, equivocation, distraction, disappearance and incoherence.
Areas of teaching
- Contemporary art practice
- Contemporary art curation
- Contemporary art theory and contextual research
- Dissertation supervision
Professional Engagement
Engagement with professional associations and societies
- Member of The Collaborative Research for Online Postgraduate Studies Network
- Contributor to the Creative Education Online Network
- Co-founder with Sarah Tripp of Decentering through Digitality, an online research group based within Falmouth University’s Centre for Pedagogy Futures, working in partnership with Glasgow School of Art
- Researcher on the Board of Directors for Skylark.fm
