This research centre combines concentrations of research themes existing in the School of Art Design and Architecture at the University of Huddersfield. It aims to drive a radical reconceptualization of teaching and research practice as exemplified by the Barbara Hepworth Building where all disciplines in the School sit under one roof. This intensely collaborative environment is part of the development of new approaches to transdisciplinary working in creative and cultural research practices.

Cultural Ecologies embraces the integrated biological, geopolitical, social, aesthetic and technological convergences of the ‘symbiotic real’, and with it, new research strategies capable of evaluating creative and cultural production within an enlarged field of post-human combinations of things, data and values.

In this respect, the centre seeks to reimagine cultures of place, engage in mixed ecologies of exchange through the co-production and/or co-creation of cultural practices and to consider new materialisms in relation to existing research orthodoxies. We encourage collaborations that will develop new ecologies of thinking and production for our times.

Our projects embrace research-focused projects and initiatives that pursue a range of thematic avenues of investigation, underpinned by several research questions, including:

1. How might mixed ecologies of cultural activity generate new assemblages of distributed power and meaning-making?
2. How can transdisciplinary practices of art, design and architecture contribute to the expanding field of cultural ecologies?
3. What role might ecological thinking play in the formations and receptions of art and culture?

If you are interested in collaborating with us please contact the Centre Director, Dr Rowan Bailey – r.bailey@hud.ac.uk