Dr Alexandra Moschovi

As an art historian specialising in lens-based media and curating, I have taught modules in art history, photography, and visual culture studies in different academic institutions in the UK and abroad, including the University of Sunderland, the Courtauld Institute of Art, Newcastle University and the European School of Photography in Athens, Greece.

In my current position as Professor of Photography/Curating in the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries, I design, deliver, co-teach, and assess core theory and theory/practice modules across BA (Hons) Photography, Video and Digital Imaging and MA Visual Practice.

I also supervise PhD courses by practice-led research and by existing publication or creative works.

Past PhD students:

• Dr Mike Golding, Falsifying Evidence, 2008 (second supervisor)
• Dr Paris Petridis, Notes at the Edge of the Road, 2010 (supervisor)
• Dr Juliet Chenery-Robson, The Visualisation of the Invisible Illness ME in Contemporary Photographic Practice, 2015, Block Grant AHRC studentship (director of studies)
• Dr Marialaura Guidini, Curating Web-based Art exhibitions: Mapping their Integration with Offline Formats of Display, 2015, Block Grant AHRC studentship (co-supervisor)
• Dr Dani Admiss How Could the Tactical Affects of ‘World-building’ in Art and Design Inform Critical Curatorial Practice? 2019, Block Grant AHRC studentship (co-supervisor)
• Dr Dawn Bothwell, Regional Intermedia: A Study of the Intermedia Approaches to Curating (1964 -1990) in North East England, 2019, Block Grant AHRC studentship (co-supervisor)
• Dr Rene Cepeda, Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art, 2020 (co-supervisor)
• Dr Xenia Nikolskaya, Representing Egypt's Architectural Heritage, 2020 (director of studies)
• Stamatis Schizakis, Plugged In: The Introduction of New Media Practices in Greece, 2022 (director of studies)
• Katrina Sluis, Curating the Photographic Image in Network Culture, 2022 (director of studies)

Current PhD students:

• Georgia Smithson, New Collecting and Distribution Models for Contemporary Media Art, AHRC NPIF studentship, start 2017 (director of studies since 2022)
• Janine Sykes, Rethinking Curation as Blended Practice, Block Grant AHRC studentship, start 2017 (director of studies since 2022)
• Matthew Gansallo, Digital and Traditional Art curatorial Practice: Connectivity and Distribution in Post Colonial Museums/Art Galleries in West Africa and Europe, Block Grant AHRC studentship (director of studies since 2022)
• Benjamin James, Parafactual Artist Film: Extending the Curatorial through Filmic Processes, Block Grant AHRC studentship, start 2019 (director of studies since 2022)
• Elizabeth Waugh McManus, Developing ‘an Internet of Glass Things’: Glass Artworks as Digitally Communicating Objects (co-supervisor)

I welcome new doctoral students working in the areas of art history, history and theory of photography, new media, museum and curating studies.

In the past decade, my research has focused on three cross-disciplinary subject areas: the cultural role of the ‘networked image’ as communication and art; the interface of photography and the museum; and the history of modern Greek photography. As writer and curator, I have collaborated with major museums, art galleries, and institutions, in Greece, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Malaysia.

My research focus:

i) Digital media and the networked image: My research in this area has focused on photo-sharing and memes, social media activism, and digital archives and has been presented at major international conferences in Europe and the UK. In 2011 I instigated and co-organised the international transdisciplinary conference The Versatile Image: Photography in the Era of Web 2.0 (University of Sunderland)and subsequently co-edited the anthology The Versatile Image: Photography, Digital Technologies and the Internet (Leuven University Press, 2013). More recently, I have collaborated with scholars of postcolonial studies to explore the impact of digital technologies on the ownership and dissemination of colonial archives. This research has been disseminated internationally through collaborative conference papers and formed the basis of an academic session for the ASEASUK conference at SOAS (Sept. 2016), the papers of which are due to be published.

ii) The accommodation of photographic arts and amateur practices in the museum: Based on archival research in institutions across Europe and the US, funded by the British Academy, the University of London and Princeton University, my work on the accommodation of photographic arts in the museum charts a still under-researched territory. Parts of this research have been presented internationally in academic conferences, research seminars, multidisciplinary anthologies and journals, in English, Greek, German, and Chinese, and two academic sessions in the Association of Art Historians conferences that I co-convened (2008, 2012). This research developed into the monograph A Gust of Photo-Philia: Photography in the Art Museum, published by Leuven University Press in 2020.

iii) History of 20th century Hellenic photography: I am the co-author of the illustrated history of Greek photography, Greece Through Photographs (Greek 2007/English 2009). This 350-page volume combines the photographic visualisation of modern Greek history with the historisation of Greek photography and is now referenced in photographic syllabi in HE institutions in Greece. In 2008 I was awarded a Stanley J. Seeger Research Fellowship in Hellenic Studies at Princeton University, followed by a Stanley J. Seeger/Princeton University Library grant to complete research on the papers of Alison Frantz. I have also collaborated with the Benaki Museum and the Museum of Photography in Thessaloniki on major exhibitions of photographic representations of postwar Greece. Recent publications of this research include contributions to an anthology of key texts on Greek photography published by the Museum of Photography Thessaloniki, 2014), the publication of the Greek Pavilion for the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2014, and the anthology Camera Graeca: Photographs, Narratives, Materialities, ed. P. Carabott and E. Papargyriou (Ashgate, 2015). I contribute to the publications of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’ Art (Athens) and have served as a member of the advisory boards of a: contemporary art review (Athens Biennial) and the Journal of Greek Media and Culture.

Recent curatorial projects include the exhibition of contemporary photographic art Realities and Plausibilities (Xippas Gallery, Athens 2009) and the survey exhibition Portrayals of History, Voula Papaioannou – Dimitris Harissiadis 1940-1960 at the Museum of Photography Thessaloniki (2017).

The above-mentioned research has also been presented in invited public talks (Princeton University Library, Photographers’ Gallery, Royal Photographic Society) and articles and interviews in newspapers (Kathimerini, Eleftherotypia, Athens). I often contribute reviews of exhibitions and publications in art journals and photography magazines, namely the Caa review, The Burlington Magazine and Source.

• Media and arts
• Contemporary Photographic Practices
• Digital Imagery and Networked Images
• History and Theory of Photography
• Photographic Practices in the museum
• Photography Archives

I am an academic peer reviewer for research applications as member of the AHRC Peer Review College and remote member for the European Research Council, for book proposals (Yale University Press, Berg, Valiz, Bloomsbury, Leuven University Press) and academic papers (Art History journal, Third Text). I currently act as external advisor for the academic journals Rebus and Journal of Greek Media and Culture.

I am Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and also a member of the photography team awarded the Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (2017) for work on students' social learning in collaboration with North East Photography Network (NEPN(opens in new tab)).

Drawing on my interest in digital media, my research in Teaching and Learning focuses on digital literacies for Art and Design students. This has also been informed by my role as a member of the Faculty's Student Success Committee and the Quality Management Sub Committee and the University Student Success Committee.

I am currently a member of the Faculty Research Student Sub-committee and the HEA Accreditation Panel and have recently acted as peer reviewer for the Advance HE scheme National Teaching Fellowship.