Three graduates of the UHI Archaeology Institute’s Contemporary Art and Archaeology MA have started their PhD research.
Susan Torrance, from Inverness, graduated in law from the University of Edinburgh in 1980. In 2021 she graduated with a BA (Hons) in fine art from the Glasgow School of Art and completed her MA at the UHI Archaeology Institute in 2023.
On her time with us, Susan explained: “The MA kindled a love of research in me, as my BA (Hons), during the time of CoVID, was not the best teaching experience because of the difficult circumstances of the pandemic.
“I could never have considered a PhD without the intellectual stimulation and encouragement to flourish which abounded in the UHI experience. I also enjoyed being part of a research cohort – I am still in touch with most of my fellow MA students and we support each other as well as participating in events and research. The final project and literature review were excellent preparation for the full PhD.”
Her final project was an exploration of how the editors of the Inverness Courier newspaper worked with Tom Johnson, the Labour politician in the 1940s, to enable the mass introduction of Hydro Electric infrastructure to the Highlands. This culminated in a performance beneath Cruachan Dam in Argyll where the words of the editors were spoken in homage to their contribution in making these significant projects happen.
Susan has just started as a first-year PhD researcher at Glasgow School of Art. Her research project is entitled Liberating the Archive and continues her exploration of the Inverness Courier archive.
Prior to her MA, Harriet Crisp undertook a BA in film and television at the University of Bristol. It during this time that Harriet began looking at the intersections between moving images, material culture studies, and archaeology – an interest that led her to pursue the MA Contemporary Art and Archaeology.
“During the MA, I developed my understanding of creative methods of engaging with material and visual culture, both past and present. I particularly enjoyed the Creative (Re)Use of Archive Film module, where I explored creative practice with archival material as a mode of critically engaging with issues of power and coloniality in archives and the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology.
“The core modules (Art and Archaeology: Contemporary Theory and Practice and Art and Archaeology in Practice) were great in allowing me to experiment with different art practices, such as creative modes of mapping and sound recording, and to collaborate with other students. The two archaeology modules I did (Archaeology of the Highlands and Islands and Neolithic Studies) provided a solid foundation in archaeological theory, which then informed my creative practice in other modules. For my dissertation, I adopted archaeological theory to analyse space and time in the audio-visual work of Andrew Kötting.”
Harriot added: “The deeply creative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative approach of the MA provided me with an exploratory attitude to research and the ability to draw connections between different ideas and practices, which will be invaluable in my PhD.
“Throughout the MA, I engaged with a number of disciplines and gained a competence in conceptual knowledge relevant to my PhD project, including contemporary archaeology, critical heritage studies, heritage futures, and understandings of landscape, place, and space in archaeology and cultural geography. Perhaps most importantly, I gained a fantastic supportive network in the lecturers and other students, who I will be in touch with for years to come.”
Harriet’s PhD in film and media studies, entitled Water Stories: Capturing, mapping, and sharing stories and imagined futures in the Forth Water Basin, is with the University of Stirling.
“I am exploring the ways stories connect people with water and contribute to their sense of place, how sharing these stories can deepen connections to cultural and natural heritages of water, and issues of inclusion, access, agency, and power raised by gathering and sharing stories. My PhD is linked with FORTH2O, a UKRI-funded Local Policy Innovation Partnership project.”
Helena Czeczenikow, from Poland, completed her BA in fine art at Lancaster University before starting the Contemporary Art and Archaeology MA.
Describing the course as a “great adventure and a truly inspiring journey”, Helena added: “Despite the fact that the course can be delivered online, I decided to move to Orkney for a year. I am very glad I did that because being able to live in such an archaeologically saturated place was an incredible experience and one that really helped me to develop as a person and an artist. And I will always miss the limitless sea views and the breathtaking beauty of the winter storms!
“I loved every aspect of the course. It helped me to unlock my artistic potential and to really dig deep into the intersection of contemporary art and archaeology in a way that I wouldn’t be able to do by myself. Most importantly, it taught me to ask questions, which is more than important now that I have started my PhD research.
“I loved being split ‘in between’ disciplines and that I could take modules from both art and archaeology. All of them are absolutely great, but the module that I especially enjoyed was the Neolithic Studies. It really opened a whole new world in front of me and introduced me to completely new ways of seeing, experiencing and thinking about our environments – past and present.”
Helena’s PhD, based at the Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, focuses on the abandoned bunkers in the landscapes of Eastern Poland – what lives do they have in the present, what worlds do they inhabit and how are they being inhabited themselves? How do they connect and disrupt modern landscapes?
“This is approached through the medium of drawing which is both a subject and a method of this research. The study, while being mostly artistic, is loosely set against the background of the archaeology of the contemporary past.
“The project therefore is a continuation of some of the ideas I developed during the Contemporary Art and Archaeology MA in Orkney and thanks to the course I feel that I have a very solid foundation in this area of study.
“The MA was really exciting and stimulating. It has shaped my current academic interests and led me to develop some passions and interests that I suspect to be life-long. I am a different person than when I started the course about two years ago; a person with broader horizons and a head full of brand-new curiosity.”
For more information about the MA Contemporary Art and Archaeology course, click here or email studyarchaeology@uhi.ac.uk
