Dr Nick Cass

Profile

I am an Associate Professor in Heritage and Contemporary Art and currently lead the MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies. I have held a variety of leadership roles including Director of Student Education and Admissions Officer, and have acted at External Examiner for Bath Spa University Newcastle University. I am currently the school’s Academic Lead for Assessment.

Having previously had extensive museum and teaching experience, I joined the univesity in 2010 as a Research Associate which combined a 0.5 teaching position with completing my PhD supervised by Professors Abigail Harrison Moore and Chris Taylor. Though my BA and MA were in Fine Art Practice, I elected to complete a research PhD which focussed on an analysis of the Contemporary Art Programme and the Bronte Parsonage Museum, exploring what kinds of experiences emerge from the commissioning of contemporary art for exhibition within this internationally well known and powerfully resonant heritage site.

As well as being a qualified and experienced classroom teacher, I have worked for Leeds Museums and Galleries and the Royal Armouries as an Education Officer; I have also worked freelance for a variety of museums in the north of England including Tate Gallery Liverpool, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester Museum of Science and Industry and Hull Museums. Prior to teaching at the University of Leeds, I was a Lecturer in Visual Communication at Leeds Arts University.

Responsibilities

• Programme Director; MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies
• School Academic Lead for Assessment

Research interests

My research is a critical examination of the ways in which artists engage with museums, collections and heritage sites. I ask questions about what impact creative practice can have on the opportunities and challenges that museums and galleries face today.

As an artist and printmaker, I have been fascinated for a long time by ornamental design prints of the sixteenth and seventeenth century intended as design material for artists and sculptors. A key strand of my work is to make new work in response to these sources as part of my wider research into how creative practice engages with historic collections.

Current PhD Projects
Lucy Lewis
Thesis title: To what extent is deep hanging out an effective ethnographic approach for understanding and evaluating pupil experience in secondary art education?
Supervised with Professor Abigail Harrison Moore

Completed PhD Projects

Layla Khoo
2026
Thesis title: Deeper engagements? The role of public participatory contemporary art installations within heritage sites and collections
Practice based PhD supervised with Professor Abigail Harrison Moore

Lorna Johnson
2025
Thesis title: Material Hoards - Yorkshire Hoards and the artist’s edit
Practice based PhD supervised with Professor Catherine Karkov

Thomas Poultney
2024
Thesis title: Making Internet Friends: The Meme Function
Practice based PhD supervised with Professor Chris Taylor

Victoria Vargas Downing
2023
Thesis title: Following threads touching knotes: decolonising heritage through contemporary art
Supervised with Professor Helen Graham

International PhD Placement Year
Cristina Farreras Collell
2024
One year placement at Leeds. Research project in collaboration with Temple Newsam House with funding from Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute Building Impact Momentum Fund.
Collaboratively supervised with Dr Quim Bonastra, University of Lleida, Spain

Primary investigator (PI)

• Mapping contemporary art in the heritage experience: Creation, Consumption and Exchange

Qualifications

• PhD Museum Studies
• MA Contemporary Art Practice
• PGCE Junior Education
• BA Fine Art

Student education

My teaching is largely focussed around Art Gallery and Museum Studies, and particularly my interest in the relationship between contemporary art practice and ways in which this intersects with heritage.

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage

Current postgraduate researchers

• Lorna Johnson
• Layla Khoo