Lizzie Ridout
About the researcher
Lizzie Ridout MA (RCA) is Course Leader for MA Communication Design and is a practicing artist, designer and researcher. Lizzie’s work has been exhibited both in the UK and internationally. She has undertaken various residencies including as Book Artist in Residence at Women’s Studio Workshop, NY, US; as Pearson Creative Research Fellow at The British Library, London, UK; as resident in the 5th Cornwall Workshop, organised by CAST, Cornwall, UK; and as Artist in Residence at Fiskars, Finland. Her bookworks are held in various international collections such as Yale University, Library of Congress and New York Public Library. Lizzie has over 20 years of experience teaching in higher education and is now embarking upon a PhD.
Lizzie’s practice research centres on modalities of language (inscribed, spoken, archived, performed, embodied, situated, environmental) as both subject of and material for design. Drawing on Poststructuralist thought, she examines how this lens of language can be applied to critically interrogate the world, informing alternative ways of seeing, knowing and doing.
Research interests
- Visual communication
- Communication design
- Language
- Expanded publishing
- Publishing-as-method
- Ecology
PhD Abstract
Thesis title
BŒKOLOGIES: Expanded practices for other-than-human representation in archival curatorial publishing
Abstract
Subject area:
Visual communication
Research question:
Within an ecological crisis, how can archival curatorial publishing practices inform the urgent need for pluralistic approaches to understanding human-nature relations?
Overview:
This practice-based project examines the role of the book, as agent, interpreter and mediator in an ecological breakdown, when hierarchies, forms of organisation and structured / fixed knowledge are all uncertain. It considers how, within this ecological crisis, archival curatorial publishing practices might inform the urgent need for pluralistic approaches in understanding human-nature relations. By interrogating historical representations of other-than-human, using an expanded publication format to display these findings, the study will present the polyphonic possibilities that decentre, moderate and unfix our tendency to privilege humanness. It also considers the book as a constellation in its own right, whilst simultaneously contributing to a constellation of other objects.
Bœkologies uses mixed methods selected from archiving, visual research, curation and publishing-as-artistic-practice. This ideology is informed by Yee and Bremmer’s methodological bricolage in design which encourages a ‘pick and mix’ approach to methods. It is also underpinned by the overlapping conceptual frameworks of practice research and arts-based research methods.
Qualifications
|
Year |
Qualification |
Awarding body |
|---|---|---|
|
2014 |
FHEA |
Higher Education Academy |
|
2002 |
Masters in Communication Art & Design |
Royal College of Art, London, UK |
|
2000 |
BA(Hons) Graphic Design |
Falmouth College of Art |
|
1997 |
Foundation Diploma in Art & Design |
Bath Academy |