Student Successes
History of Art
Graduates co-curates exhibitions at The Bristol Gallery
A number of History of Art MA students have been involved in curatorial projects with The Bristol Gallery (Millennium Promenade, Harbourside).
Holly Lopez, who graduated from Bristol in 2009 with a First Class Honours degree and is now studying part-time for her MA, is Gallery Manager at The Bristol Gallery. Holly landed the job after acting as research assistant to Dr Dorothy Rowe on the exhibition Myth and History (September 2009). Highlights from amongst the exhibitions which Holly has researched and co-curated are New Contemporaries (October 2009); Picasso, Matisse, Chagall (December 2009) and The Art of Democracy (March 2010). She recently shared her knowledge and experiences of ‘Academia and the Art World’ with the members of the Graduate School in their lunchtime seminar series The Experience of Research.
Hywel Livingstone is a practising sculptor who chose to pursue postgraduate studies in the History of Art in order to contextualise his fine art practice. Hywel’s sculptural work, including his wonderful Fairy Tale, has been included in the Bristol Gallery’s latest exhibition To Be Confirmed (January 2010).
Cicely Robinson and Helen Bowden are regular employees for The Bristol Gallery, gaining both paid and voluntary curatorial experience whilst completing their MA. Cicely is involved in marketing strategies for the gallery and researched and wrote wall labels for the exhibition Picasso, Matisse, Chagall (December 2009). She is currently doing research for the gallery’s forthcoming exhibition John Piper (17 February–4 March 2010).
MPhil student Rebecca Haghpanah-Shirwan, who recently submitted her dissertation on Soviet Imagery in Post-Modern New York, will undertake research on British Pop Art for the forthcoming Bristol Gallery exhibition of prints and new work by Sir Peter Blake. This event coincides with the gallery’s hosting of the Southbank Centre’s Arts Council-funded Hayward Touring exhibition Peter Blake: Alphabet (24 April–23 May 2010).
Several History of Art postgraduate research students have given public talks at The Bristol Gallery. Theodora Clarke, who is researching the patronage of Russian art in America, gave a talk on Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes to coincide with the 2009 exhibition of Picasso, Chagall, Matisse. AHRC-funded collaborative doctoral award student Rachel Flynn, who is researching the Graham Sutherland Archive at Amgueddfa Cymru—National Museum Wales, will speak on aspects of British Neo-Romanticism to coincide with The Bristol Gallery’s forthcoming John Piper exhibition (17 February – 4 March 2010), and AHRC-funded postgraduate research student Peter Stilton, who is researching British art in the 1950s and 60s, will contribute to a programme of talks about British Pop Art to be held at The Bristol Gallery from April 2010.
Music
Funding for research trip to Australia
Research student, Nick Nourse, has just been awarded a generous grant from the Bristol offices of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN). The funds, from the WUN Research Mobility Programme, are to assist a six-week research and networking trip to Perth and the University of Western Australia (UWA) next year. With these funds Nick will be able to significantly enhance the quality of his research topic on 19th-century popular music, ‘Who took the singing out of popular song? Britain and the Empire, 1800-1850’.
Essay awards
French
Dominic Lintner, who graduated in French and Italian in 2010, has been awarded the Douglas Johnson Memorial Essay Prize by the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France for his dissertation 'Developments in far Right Thought in France, 1954-1972'.
English
Stacey McDowell, a postgraduate student in the Department of English, has won second prize in the 2009 Keats-Shelley essay competition. The awards, set up in 1998 by the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association, encourage talented essayists to write on any aspect of the work or life of Keats, Shelley, Byron or Mary Shelley. The winners were announced by the chair of the judges, Professor Janet Todd, President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, at an awards ceremony in London in October.
Philosophy
Adela Roszkowski, a postgraduate student on the MA Philosophy and History of Science programme at Bristol last year has been awarded the US Philosophy of Science Association Graduate Student Essay Award 2009 for an essay she submitted. The essay which will be published in Philosophy of Science demonstrates a substantial achievement, especially for a Masters student, as this is a highly competitive award.
Theology
Jennie Sanderson from the Theology and Religious Studies department has been awarded the University of Bristol ‘Best Research Degree Thesis’ prize in Arts and Humanities 08/09 for her PhD thesis entitled: 'Sex, Sin and Gender: The Late Medieval Discursive Construction of Femininity'. Nominations for the prize are made by thesis examiners and the competition is fierce. The prizes, of £500, are currently awarded to one student in each Faculty whose work is judged to have been of the highest quality. This is the second year in succession that the prize has been awarded to a doctoral candidate in Theology and Religious Studies.
Drama graduates
Alumni of the Year Award finalist
Chao Gan - a graduate of the MA Television Studies programme at Bristol was a finalist in the Alumni of the Year Award 2009 which was announced as part of the second annual British Business Awards.
Led by the British Chamber of Commerce in China, the British Business Awards highlights the strong links between China and the UK and rewards innovation, enterprise and endeavour in the fields of business, education and corporate social responsibility. The British Council China supported BBA throughout the whole process and also sponsored the 'Alumni of the Year Award' to recognise UK alumni's important contributions to business and cultural ties between the UK and China.
The winners were announced at a gala dinner at the Chaoyang Westin Hotel in Beijing on the 3rd November with the Patron of the Awards, British Ambassador to China, Sir William Ehrman KCMG, presiding over a gathering of over 300 guests.
Chao, an award winning documentary film producer, is now deputy director for Shanghai Media Group's documentary channel. His film 'The Red Race' was one of the entries at the 6th International Film Festival Docudays.ua which took place in Kiev, Ukraine in April 2009. Over 30 films from almost 50 countries of the world were selected for creative and human rights competitions with Chao's film placed in the Art Competition. His film portrays the pressure on children from poor families whose destitute parents push them to become famous gymnasts.
London Short Film Festival
'On the Edge' - a short comedy film written and produced by students on the MA Film and Television Production programme in 2009 - has been selected to be screened at the 6th London Short Film Festival. The film, shot on super 16mm film and filmed over three days in April at Woodcroft Quarry near Chepstow, tells the story of Phil who isn’t having the best of days, in fact he’s about to end it all. Unfortunately, unbeknown to him, so is Gary and he’s standing just a few metres further along the cliff face. After an awkward meeting and exchange of pleasantries, Phil and Gary bond over a hastily written suicide “text” and procrastinate over the inevitable.
Written and directed by Tom Day and with the cast and crew made up of other students on the MA programme, the film will be part of the comedy-themed selection screening which will take place in London from 8th - 17th January 2010.
Writing about his experience of making the film, Tom said: “There were a few challenges along the way, particularly the bad weather and making sure we didn’t drop thousands of pounds worth of equipment off a cliff! All in all though, we all had loads of fun making “On the Edge” and it was a fantastic experience.“
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