Dr Joanna Griffin
Lecturer, Drawing BA(Hons)
I am an artist and educator with a research interest in experiential encounters with large-scale technological structures. This long-term inquiry includes hunting submarines in Scottish lochs, filming surveillance helicopters from my inner-city home, and finding stories of lost spacecraft during a Fellowship at the NASA Space Science Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. I led a number of projects for The Arts Catalyst art/science agency, including a guided walk ‘Satellite Stories’ led by scientists at Mullard Space Science Lab, UK. After the launch of India’s Chandrayaan-1 Moon mission in 2008, I was invited to Bangalore to mentor the Moon Vehicle project - a two-year cultural engagement between creative practitioners, scientists and engineers, children and a broader public. Drawing as a form of observational research and investigation has been an abiding concern across these projects, and a tool for interdisciplinary collaboration.
My doctoral research unpacked the motivations behind Moon Vehicle and the tactical use of visuality deployed through its transdisciplinary, creative encounters. I have an MA (Hons) Fine Art from the University of Edinburgh and an MA in Hypermedia Studies from the University of Westminster. My recent research concerns interdisciplinarity across arts and sciences in 1970s Ahmedabad. I held a Teaching Fellowship at CEPT University, in 2016-17 and researched interdisciplinary collaboration between creative practitioners and space scientists in the 1960s and 70s about which I am creating film works. In the past two editions of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale I conceptualised and produced the two-day international symposium ‘Creative Encounters with Science and Technology ‘ (2017) and, as Co-Investigator, convened the five-day writing workshop ‘Exchange and Flow’ (2019), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
External Links
Qualifications
Qualifications
| Year | Qualification | Awarding body |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | PhD | University of Plymouth |
| 2003 | MA Hypermedia Studies | University of Westminster |
| 1991 | MA (Hons) Fine Art | University of Edinburgh |
Research Interests
Research interests and expertise
Research topics
- Artistic interventions concerning space industries
- Histories of science and space programme in India
- Cultures of technologies
- Drawing, print media and film
- Transdisicplinarity and interdisciplinarity
Research Outputs
Publications and research outputs
Externally funded research grants information
| Collaborators | Currency | Funder | HESA Category | Project title | Value | Year ending | Year starting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Plymouth |
£ | AHRC | Technology, Exchange and Flow Writing Workshops at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale | 28,000 | 2019 | 2018 |
Teaching
Areas of teaching
- Drawing
- Contextual studies
Courses taught
- Drawing BA(Hons)
- Fine Art MA (Online)
Professional Engagement
Social, community and cultural engagement
Engagement with professional associations and societies
Leonardo, International Society for Arts, Sciences and Technology
