Sarah Bennett
Images: 1) Sarah Bennett; 2) & 3) Reece Straw
Sarah Bennett is a practicing artist and academic. She has exhibited regularly in the UK and Europe. Bennett has 35 years experience in Higher Arts Education – previous posts include Head of Fine Art, and Head of the School of Art and Media at Plymouth University. She has recently retired as Head of the School of Art and Architecture at Kingston University, London, but continues to supervise PhD candidates and undertake research at Kingston. She also has experience in delivery of international collaborative Masters and PhD programmes in Fine Art. Bennett is on the Board of EQ-Arts, (based in Amsterdam), and participates in international quality assurance processes across Europe, as well as being a panel member for Validations and Periodic Reviews in the UK. She has a practice based PhD from Plymouth University (2010) and is Senior Fellow of the Higher Education academy.
In her art practice Bennett engages an archival/historical lens to explore institutional or dominant systems and codes - in order to flip the historical viewpoint back towards contemporary contexts and concerns. She uses a range of artistic research methods from facsimile object making to observational drawing to digital recording (photo, sound, video), with artworks more often than not installed in non-gallery settings. Her PhD by practice was awarded in 2010 and her artistic research and writing traverses fine art practice, cultural geography, visual anthropology, museology and the history of psychiatry. She regularly exhibits in the UK and Italy.