Dr. Lisa Metherell
Lisa holds a B.Soc.Sci. in Media, Culture and Society, an M.A. in Fine Art and a Ph.D. in Art and Design. Lisa is an artist and lecturer specialising in the relationship between practice and theory within Art and Design. Her funded research through art practice PhD: ‘Glittering Orientations: Towards a non-figurative queer art practice’, was completed in April 2014. Lisa is currently directing her attention to what slips by exploring (dis)orientation and how we might experience provisional embodiments through encounters with non-representational art. Her work is particularly informed by the tensions between queer theory and phenomenology and how what we 'know' might be usefully troubled by what we 'feel'. Other interests include fabulation, secret languages, vulnerability and critical design. She also writes about werewolves.
Qualifications
2014: PhD Fine Art (AHRC funded) School of Art, BCU
2007: MA Fine Art with Distinction (AHRC funded) School of Art, BCU
1997: BSocSc (Hons) 2:1 in Media, Culture and Society, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham
Research
Life Moving. Digital Technology and Human Vulnerability: Towards an Ethical Film Praxis, October 2016 - April 2017 University of Birmingham, John Taylor Hospice, BCU, University of Warwick.
Co-Investigator on an AHRC funded collaborative pilot study to explore how digital film technologies impact ‘ethical encounters’ when engaging with representations of human vulnerability. The project involved participants from a local hospice producing digital film with a filmmaker, and three universities researching interdisciplinary ethical practice and representations of dying. It culminated with an exhibition in April in Erdington, The Birmingham Rep and mac Birmingham. The AHRC funder present at the opening described the project as “brilliant.” Feedback collected from participants, their friends, carers and health professionals highlighted the need for the films to be shown more widely and to inform health care practices in palliative care. The films have had international reach. In 2019 they have been used with healthcare professionals and support groups in palliative care in Uganda, Rwanda and Australia.
Knowledge Exchange in Design: The Ikon’s activity during the 1980s, March 2014 - June 2014, Ikon Gallery and BCU.
Research project working with Ikon archives from the 1980s.
Live Art Research Hub, Sep 2013, mac birmingham and University of Warwick.
Design of the Research Hub for an AHRC-funded Cultural Value project working with Fun with Cancer Patients.
Hidden Collections: From Archive to Asset The Gothic Project, Sep 2012-Sep 2013 British Film Institute, BCU and University Nottingham.
An AHRC-funded multi-disciplinary collaborative project with training on public engagement in digital contexts. Researching BFI archive material and creating online educational resources for the BFI Gothic season.
Alternative Kinships, March 2013, mac Birmingham and Shout.
Devised and co-ordinated a project in which creative explorations of alternative families and kinships in their broadest sense took place. Beginning from alternative family trees, this project sought to validate alternative support structures but also recognise gaps in support and to try to affect change through conversation, film and workshops. Activities included workshops on queer family trees and end of life considerations; free haircuts and conversations; craft sessions; film screenings and discussions, as well as the creation of a space for reading, sharing a drink and sharing ideas.
Gay Family Trees, June 2012, Hayward Gallery.
Co-facilitated visual art workshop with sexuality historian Hera Cook.
The Gait Lab Project, December 2006-May 2007, West Midlands Rehabilitation Centre and BCU.
Collaboration with an NHS rehabilitation centre to explore the role of medical technologies in the construction of non-normative bodies and subjectivities and how the ‘medical gaze’ might be contested by patients and clinicians. Funded by AHRC.
Speculate in the Learning Grid, September 2005University of Warwick.
Collaboration with the University of Warwick’s Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research to create a series of images and text on the theme of reflexivity in ways of seeing and knowing.
Publications
Papers
Metherell, L. Messy Care in the Art Institution, Dirty Practice: Don’t Wash Your Hands! Constructive Cross Contamination of the Arts and the Institution, University of Wolverhampton, July 2019.
Metherell, L., Practising Networks of Care in Research, BCU Art and Activisms Research Cluster, Eastside Projects, February 2019.
Metherell, L., Give me glitter over white walls anytime, artist residency and symposium, Dirty Practice: Art School Today: Who Cares? Developing a Culture of Care within a Disembodied Institution, University of Wolverhampton, June 2018.
Metherell, L., Tracking the Werewolf, Public Lecture at ‘Night School’, School of Art, BCU, October 2017.
Metherell, L., Glittering Methods. Research in Practice: A Showcase of Creative, Cultural and Social Methodologies, University of Western Scotland, Film City Glasgow, July 2017.
Metherell, L., The Horror of Queer: Werewolves and other Monstrous Subjects, School of Art, BCU with Shout, Public Lecture, November 2016.
Metherell, L., The Queer Art of Excess, University of Derby, November 2016.
Metherell, L., Glitter and the Queer Art of Excess, Royal Geographic Society with IBG, University of Exeter, September 2015.
Metherell, L., The Horror of Queer: Werewolves and other Monstrous Subjects. The Company of Wolves: Sociality, Animality, and Subjectivity in Literary and Cultural Narratives, University of Hertfordshire, September 2015.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-33971546
Metherell, L., Coming Out as Werewolf, Gothic Convention and Exhibition, BCU, Library of Birmingham, May 2015.
Metherell, L., A Response: Thinking through Art Practice: Circulation and Disorientation, Eco-logics: Ethics, Politics, Art, Nottingham Contemporary, May 2014.
Metherell, L., Queer Encounters with Art: (Dis)Orientations Beyond Representations of Sexual Bodies, Civil Partnerships? Queer and Feminist Curating, Tate Modern, May 2012.
Metherell, L., Art Beyond Representation, Gender and Sexuality Research Seminar, The Barber Institute, University of Birmingham, May 2011. Invited to present.
Metherell, L. & Rogers, H., Student and Supervisor: Queer Encounters with Art, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, BCU, March 2009.
Publications
Metherell, L (2020) Unspeakable Acts: Coming Out as Werewolf in Elliot-Smith, D. & Edgar Browning, J. ‘Off-Cuts’: New Queer Horror Film and Television Aesthetics and Identities. University of Wales Press.
Metherell, L. (2013) queer:reading:room in Rogers, H. (ed) Queer Textualities, Birmingham: Article Press.
Metherell, L. (2009), Corpus Queer: A Del La Grace Volcano Retrospective, exhibition catalogue introduction, LGBT Community Trust: Birmingham.
Exhibitions
Figure and Ground, February 2019, Staff Show, School of Art, BCU
Careful, June 2018, Artist Residency, University of Wolverhampton
Glitter, February 2018, Staff Show, School of Art, BCU
queer:reading:room, September 2011, PhD research installation at the Postgraduate Art Show, BCU
Blacked Out, August 2010, Arch 897, London
Club Cave 27, April 2008, New Generation Arts, The Q Club, Birmingham
Club Zhooshy, September 2007, MA Fine Art Postgraduate show
Everything Changes, BCU (Ikon Gallery Award)
Out of the Shadows, May-June 2007, Various venues, Birmingham
HeebieJeebies, May 2007, The Works Gallery, Birmingham
Everybody Knows I’m Looking, October-November 2005, Congreve Corner Window Gallery, Birmingham Central Library (YouTube) (window 5)
Speculate, March-April 2005, Civic Offices, Dublin
Nimble Fingers: Scrubbers, August 2004, Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Cardiff and Civic Offices, Dublin