Dr Louise Bell
Lecturer
Dr Louise Bell is a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Falmouth University's Fashion & Textiles Institute, where she teaches across Costume Design for Film & TV, Fashion Design, Fashion Photography, Fashion Marketing, and Textiles. She first came to Falmouth in 2015 to undertake an MA in Illustration: Authorial Practice before beginning an AHRC-funded PhD in Illustration in 2017. During her doctoral studies, she worked as a Research Student Teaching Assistant in Illustration before moving across the Tamar to lecture at the University of Plymouth, where she taught on BA Illustration, BA Graphic Design, MA Illustration, MA Communication Design, and MDes Design. In September 2025, she returned to Falmouth University to join the Cultural Studies team in FTI.
External Links
Contact details
Qualifications
Qualifications
| Year | Qualification | Awarding body |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | PhD (AHRC-funded) | Falmouth University |
| MA Illustration: Authorial Practice (Distinction) | Falmouth University | |
| BA(Hons) Fine Art | Leeds Metropolitan University |
Honors and awards
| Year | Description |
|---|---|
| 2017 | AHRC 3D3 Doctoral Studentship, Falmouth University |
| 2016 | Falmouth School of Art Award for Outstanding Curation (Sophronia) |
Membership of external committees
British Academy Early Career Researcher Network, Walking Artists NetworkResearch Interests
Research interests and expertise
My research sits at the intersection of feminist phenomenology, empathy, and creative practice. As an interdisciplinary artist, my work explores landscape, memory, movement, and embodied historical encounter through walking, drawing, photography, film, mapping, and writing. I investigate how creative practice can generate reflective and affective forms of engagement with place, material traces, and layered histories, asking how embodied encounters with landscapes, objects, and images might offer new ways of understanding the experiences of others across time.
My AHRC-funded practice-led PhD explored how illustration practice could function as a methodological means of engaging with phenomenologist Edith Stein's philosophy of empathy. Building on this foundation, my current research examines how walking, movement, and creative practice can contribute to feminist phenomenological understandings of historical experience. My present project explores the writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, investigating how movement, enclosure, and place shape devotional experience through expanded artistic practice.
I welcome enquiries from prospective postgraduate researchers interested in feminist phenomenology, empathy, practice-led research, walking methodologies, landscape, memory and postmemory, visual culture, interdisciplinary creative practice, and the relationships between art, design, and the humanities.
Research topics
- Feminist phenomenology
- Practice-led research
- Empathy and embodied experience
- Walking and landscape
- Memory and postmemory
- Visual culture
- Medieval studies
- Creative methodologies
- Interdisciplinary artistic practice
Professional Engagement
Independent professional practice
- Processional State (collaborative), Grow Studios, Plymouth, 2024
- An Attempt at Revealing a Place Through Walking, Devonport Guildhall, Plymouth, 2019
- An Attempt at Revealing a Place Through Walking, Old Bank Studios, Penryn, 2018
- FOMO, Falmouth Art Publishing Fair, 2017
- Shaping the View: Understanding Landscape Through Illustration, touring exhibition:
- Hereford College of Arts, 2017
- Manchester School of Art, 2017
- Edinburgh College of Art, 2016
- Sophronia, Falmouth University, 2016
Social, community and cultural engagement
- ‘Utterance and Silence: Feminist Phenomenologies of Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich’, Gender and Medieval Studies Conference, University College Oxford, June 2026
- ‘Utterance and Silence: Feminist Phenomenologies of Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich’, International Women’s Writing Association Inaugural Conference, Falmouth University, September 2026
- ‘The Granddaughter-Illustrator as a Performing Agent of Postmemory’, Illustration Research Symposium: Illustration & Heritage, University of the Arts London, 2024
- ‘Processional State’ (collaborative), activate CHAT Conference, University of Plymouth, 2024
- ‘The Granddaughter-Illustrator as a Performing Agent of Postmemory’, Digital Flow/s, Watershed Bristol, 2023
- ‘Empathic Attention: Illustration as an Affective Space for Encounter’, Illustration Research Symposium, Kingston University, 2021
Engagement with professional associations and societies
Over the past three years, I have actively engaged with a number of professional and academic networks that support interdisciplinary research across art, design, and the humanities. I am a member of the British Academy Early Career Researcher Network, through which I engage with professional development opportunities, funding initiatives, and events for early career researchers. I am also a member of the Illustration Research Network and the Walking Artists Network, participating in communities of practice that foster collaboration between artists, researchers, and educators.
My research has been disseminated through a range of national and international conferences. These engagements have enabled me to develop collaborations across disciplines and practice-led research while contributing to wider disciplinary conversations. I maintain an active interdisciplinary research profile through collaborations with artists and academics, the development of external funding applications, and participation in research networks that support practice-led methodologies, visual culture, walking, landscape, and creative research. These activities inform both my research and teaching, ensuring that my curriculum reflects current debates and emerging interdisciplinary approaches.
