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Victoria Walters

Website
Victoriawalters.co.uk

Associate Member

Victoria recently completed a PhD in Visual Culture at the University of Ulster on the practice of the German sculptor Joseph Beuys, with a particular interest in the artist’s work as a healing discourse and pedagogy that engages with the Celtic world. She holds a BA (Hons) in European Studies with French from the University of Manchester and an MA in Digital Media from the University of the West of England, where her dissertation assessed the value of revisiting the work of Futurist poets as precedents for poetry work in the digital medium.

Victoria has held the posts of Junior Fellow in Visual Culture at the University of the West of England and Visiting Lecturer in Visual Culture at the University of the West of England and Bath Spa University College. Her research interests include the “ethnographic turn” in art, “border crossings” between art and anthropology, text as image and related debates around the relevance of theories of language to understandings of visual practice, and discussions of the legacy of Beuys’ practice in contemporary contexts. She is currently co-editing a forthcoming book on Beuys to be published by LIT Verlag.

In 2007, Victoria convened the Symposium ‘Artistic Detours’: Joseph Beuys as Anthropologist at the Academy for Irish Cultural Heritages, University of Ulster and gave a paper on the artist’s work at the Royal Anthropological Institute conference “Beyond Text”. She co-convened and chaired a workshop on the crossover between art and anthropology at the International Congress of the International Society of Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) in June 2008.

Victoria has been the recipient of bursaries from the UK Business Women’s Network and the Weimar-Jena-Akademie, enabling her to attend summer schools on the crossover between contemporary art and anthropology at the University of Oslo and on Beuys’ Social Sculpture in Weimar, Germany. Two separate awards of the University of Ulster’s Library Scholarship made it possible for her to undertake archive research on Beuys in Germany.

Education

  • 2005-2009
    • PhD Visual Culture, University of Ulster – Viva Voce June 2009 –  Pass (no changes).  Thesis on Joseph Beuys’ anthropological art practice as an expanded language and healing discourse engaging with the Celtic world. Thesis published in 2012.
  • 2000-2003
    • MA Digital Media, University of the West of England – Pass – Focus on poetry in the digital medium. Dissertation on degree to which Futurist poetry constitutes a valuable precedent for digital screen-based poetry.
  • 1992-1996
    • BA (Hons) European Studies (French), Manchester University – High 2:1, special mention spoken French – My degree equipped me with the ability to think critically and analytically and present ideas in writing in a coherent, logical way. ERASMUS year at Lyon III University, followed Arts and Law Faculty courses, awarded DEUF.

Employment

  • February 2021 – current
    • Digital Learning Developer (part-time), Bath Spa University - training staff teaching online
  • September 2020 – June 2021; September 2019 – March 2020; September 2018 – April 2019; September 2016 – June 2017 and September 2015 – June 2016:
    • Associate Lecturer (part-time), Visual Culture, University of the West of England (UWE)
  • March 2018 – March 2020
    • PhD supervision to completion of AHRC-funded PhD student in Art History at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD), University of Dundee
  • November 2017
    • Research Assistant (part-time) - translation work from French to English to support research by Professor Máiréad Nic Craith, Chair in European Culture, Heriot-Watt University
  • August 2017 – October 2017
    • Course development (part-time) for pre-Masters Art & Design programme for delivery at the International Academy of Art & Design, Chongqing, China by KEASS Creative Group
  • October 2015 – June 2016:
    • Visiting Lecturer (part-time), MFA Art and Humanities, DJCAD, University of Dundee
  • September 2014 – August 2015:
    • Resident Tutor (part-time) while undertaking PgDip Fine Art, Bath Spa University
  • December 2012 – September 2014:
    • Senior Research Fellow, Winchester School of Art (WSA), University of Southampton
  • November 2009 – October 2012:
    • Research Associate, PLaCE Research Centre, Bower Ashton Campus, UWE
  • February 2007 – February 2008:
    • Occasional seminar teaching and lecturing in European Studies and Visual Culture during PhD
  • February 2004 – June 2005:
    • Visiting Lecturer, Contextual Studies (part-time), Bath Spa University
  • September 2003 – June 2005:
    • Junior Fellow and from January 2004, Visiting Lecturer in Visual Culture (part-time), UWE

Teaching

  • Awarded Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA), April 2018
  • Supervised Art History PhD student to completion, University of Dundee, second supervisor for 3 practice-led PhD students, UWE, second supervisor for PhD student, Southampton University
  • Visiting Lecturer teaching into MFA Art and Humanities at University of Dundee and invited contributions to undergraduate and MA Fine Art programmes at Winchester School of Art
  • Visiting Lecturer in Contextual Studies at Bath Spa University following MA Digital Media. Seminar teaching for undergraduate modules and assessment of student presentations, essays and dissertations. Lectured on my research to MA students
  • Taught undergraduate seminars and gave lectures in Visual Culture and European Studies while following PhD studies at the University of Ulster

Publications (edited list)

  • Walters, V., 2019. Joseph Beuys and EURASIA. In Tate Papers No.31, Spring 2019 [online]. See: https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/31/joseph-beuys-eurasia
  • Walters, V., 2014. We-Minotaur-Labyrinth-Root: talking transgression with Beuys and Bataille. In Rice, L. and Little, D., eds., Transgression: towards an expanded field of architecture. Series: Critical Studies in Architectural Humanities. Oxford: Routledge, pp.230-252
  • Walters, V., 2012. Joseph Beuys and the Celtic Wor(l)d: a language of healing. Berlin:LIT Verlag.
  • Lerm Hayes, C. and Walters, V., eds., 2011. Beuysian Legacies in Ireland and Beyond: Art, Culture and Politics. Berlin: LIT Verlag
  • Walters, V., 2010. The Artist as Shaman: the work of Joseph Beuys and Marcus Coates. In Schneider, A. and Wright, C., eds., Between Art and Anthropology. Oxford: Berg, pp. 35-47
  • Walters, V., 2010. Working “in the Opposite Direction”: Joseph Beuys in the Field. In Anthropological Journal of European Cultures Vol. 19 (2) 2010, pp. 22-43

Academic Awards & Prizes

  • Travelling scholarship from UK Federation of Businesswomen to attend workshop on the relationship between Art and Anthropology at the University of Oslo
  • First prize for poster competition for researchers in the School of Languages and Literature and two University of Ulster library scholarships to fund archival research on Joseph Beuys

Victoria Walters

e-mail: waltersvictoria@hotmail.com