Birmingham Institute of Art and Design: Research

Centre for Fine Art Research

The Centre for Fine Art Research embraces fine art practice, theory and debate. Its major concern is engagement with national and international debates and providing a strong regional base to advance this work. This group has a particular specialist expertise in public art, performance and performativity and dialogues around sexuality and art. The Centre funds and staffs a dedicated gallery (International Project Space - IPS) as well as running a publishing house (The Article Press) which facilitates collaboration between CFAR researchers with collaborators elsewhere in Britain and internationally. IPS enables research-active staff to strengthen and develop a recognised area of expertise in international collaboration and to further enhance national and regional partnerships. The Article Press provides a forum for the dissemination of the work of staff in a national and international context. It also attracts other bodies to fund and use it, impressed by the high editorial standards and the attractive presentation of its publications.

The establishment of the fine art symposia at Margaret Street and Bournville have enabled members to address cutting-edge theoretical and practical issues. They place the Centre and the university within a national critical and theoretical debate in fine art. These events also attract artists from Britain and abroad to contribute. In turn this means that the proceedings form important and well-received documents.

Research Themes

The Centre for Fine Art Research (CFAR) fosters five Research strands:

Art in the Public Sphere is concerned with philosophical and relational aesthetics, curatorial practice, new media, arts projects in the community and theories underpinning concepts of public culture.
Interpretation and Documentation is concerned with the history and politics of visual representation and addresses the ways in which knowledge is ordered and constructed by interpretative and documentary practices.
Performance and Performativity is concerned with the exploration of subjectivity, identity, representation and becoming; art and transgression; performativity and the art object, and performative writing practices.
Meaning and Form through Process is concerned with the exploration of materials and experiments with technologies. This field of research also includes lens-based media research and an interest in material production and the hand crafted artefact.
Museums and Archives Research

Research: BIADResearch@bcu.ac.uk

BIAD, Birmingham City University, Gosta Green, Birmingham B4 7DX

Birmingham Institute of Art and Design - Research

Centre for Fine Art Research

Research Themes