About

I am a contemporary photographic artist and Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Derby. This involves a combination of research and lecturing in fine art and photographic practices and theory.

I belong to an artist-research group called Proximity Collective based in Manchester, Cumbria, Blackpool and Leeds. Together, we explore the social and spatial aspects of practice-based research and notions of convivial aesthetics. I also co-created NMRG (New Materialist Reading Group) at UoD with Dr. Victoria Sharples. Together, we facilitate interdisciplinary research activities with a focus on 'new materialist' approaches to art practice. 

My photography practice engages with architecture, sculpture, installation, and model-making to playfully investigate the ways in which photographic images intersect with the built environment and shape our experiences of place and space. 

My PhD research at Manchester School of Art titled Manifold draws on aspects of baroque architecture, paper design, installation practices, and theories of folding, to explore the photographic paper-print as a generative, form-making tool. 

Teaching responsibilities

• BA (Hons) Photography

Professional interests

• Contemporary photography practice 
• The photographic image in relation to space/place/architecture  
• The 'everyday' and banality  
• Materiality 
• Dimensionality 
• Site-specific art practice
• Self-reference
• Generative Design

Research interests

The doctoral research emerges from art practice and an interest in the relationship between photography and the built environment, in particular the ways in which photographic images shape and mediate our experiences of buildings and places. 

This study combines creative practice and theory to determine the generative and transformative capabilities of the photographic paper print and its potential to transform and reconfigure 'banal' 'everyday' or 'unremarkable' architectural spaces. Through a series of creative experiments, I explore the materiality of the paper print and the form-making, shape-shifting effects of cutting, folding, installing and rephotographing it. Drawing from theories of 'the fold' (Deleuze, 1988) and baroque aesthetics, I consider how a 'standard' sized photographic print can be transformed into something 'non-standard' and variable.

Qualifications

• PhD 
• MA
• BA
• Associate Fellowship (AFHEA)

Recent conferences

• GLAD symposium 2023: Gathering Ourselves, 2023 (co-participant with Proximity Collective)
• ​An Elastic Continuum, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK, 2023
• On Not Knowing: How Artists Teach, Glasgow School of Art, UK, 2023 (co-participant with Proximity Collective)
• ​What Photography Can Be, Format23, QUAD, Derby UK, 2023
• Arts in Society History/Histories: From the Limits of Representation to the Boundaries of Narrative, July 2022 (online)
• iJade, Hybrid Spaces: Re-imagining pedagogy, practice and research, 2021
• The Image, Techno-storytelling: Past, Present, Future, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2019 
• NWCDTP, Digital Humanities, Human Technologies, Salford University, 2018

Experience in industry

Recent Exhibitions/Installations 

Group

• An Elastic Continuum, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK (2023)
• ​We are Nothing Without Stories, Format Festival, Derby, UK (2023)
• There-Then-Here-Now, Manchester, UK (November 2022)
• All the Small Things, Artcore, Derby, UK (2021) 
• Proximity at Abingdon Street Market, Blackpool, UK (window exhibition) (2021)
• Proximity at Paradise Works, Salford, UK (2019)
• The Image, Manchester School of Art, UK (2019)  
• Nothing Abandoned, Paradise Works, Salford, UK (2017)
• Visualising the Home, Carlisle photo festival, Vallum Gallery, Carlisle, UK (2017) 
• What? Now! Manchester School of Art, Manchester, UK (2013)
• The World According to Mass, Bench Gallery, Manchester, UK (2012)
• Leeds Beckett Degree Show, Leeds, UK (2011) 

Solo

• Mirror-Like-Marble, Derby Cathedral, Derby, UK (2022)
• Unit 28-30, Stretford Mall, Manchester, UK (2021) 
• When we build, let us think that we build forever, Holden Gallery foyer, Manchester School of Art, UK (2019)
• Meta, Holden Gallery (film projection room), Manchester School of Art, UK
• Repeat Pattern, Manchester School of Art, Manchester (2016)

UK Residencies 

• Proximity writing retreat, Lymm, UK, 2023
• Proximity at Bloc projects, Sheffield, UK, 2023
• Proximity at Rogue Studios, Manchester, UK, 2022
• Researcher-in-residence, Instagram Takeover, PAHC (Post-graduate Arts and Humanities Research Centre) Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK (2021)
• Paradise Works, Salford, UK (2019)
• Islington Mill, Salford, UK (2019) 
• Venture Arts, Manchester, UK (2019)

International experience

International Residencies 

• British School at Rome, Italy (2019)

Recent publications

• Howard, R. (2021) 'Thinking and Making through Folds' in Comparative Media Arts Journal, Issue 9, 2021