Nick Thurston
- Position: Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Literature
- Areas of expertise: Contemporary art practice and theory; contemporary poetry and poetics; literary and media theory; histories and theories of publishing and reading.
- Email: N.Thurston@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: 1.17 School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies
- Website: Nick Thurston's homesite
Profile
I joined the University of Leeds in 2012 as Lecturer in Fine Art and became an Associate Professor (Reader) in 2018. Previously, I worked as an associate lecturer and workshop leader at various art schools and departments in the UK and Europe, teaching from Foundation level to MA since 2007.
My undergraduate studies were as a part-time student with the Open University, effectively minoring in Linguistics and majoring in Moral Philosophy, graduating in 2007. My postgraduate studies were as a part-time Chancellor's Scholarship awardee at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, then Middlesex University, graduating in 2011.
My first book was published in 2006 and throughout my time studying and teaching I was publishing and exhibiting. My academic awards include an Author Grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art History at Yale (2014) and a Visiting Research Fellowship in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (2016).
Responsibilities
- Director of Impact
Research interests
I am a writer and editor who makes art and teaches.
As a writer, I work across and between the broad fields of contemporary art and poetry. As an editor, I get most excited about the edges of those fields and working in their wilds. My critical writing is comparative, ideas-led, and para-scholarly. My poetic writing is propositional, materially sensitive, and always about exploring "language at full stretch", as Winifred Nowottny put it.
For me, making art is a form of social work that enacts the speculative imaginary. My artworks always involve language and often involve experimental/DIY publishing, collectivist modes of collaboration, and a conceptualist approach to sharing, be that through display or distribution. I follow Robert Filliou's sentiment that, "art is what makes life more interesting than art".
As an educator, I try to help other people make sense of what they think, do and make, and I try to learn with them.
You can find details on my homesite.
At Leeds, I co-founded the Artists' Writings & Publications Research Centre and am a Research Fellow of the Poetry Centre.
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Some research projects I'm currently working on, or have worked on, will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>Qualifications
- PGC Lecturer Training for Higher Education
- MA Modern European Philosophy
- BA Open
Professional memberships
- Higher Education Academy, London, 2012-
- International Association of Art Critics, UK branch, 2014-
- Association of Art Historians, UK, 2015-
Student education
I teach in the studio across our UG and PG programmes, and I supervise practice-led PhD candidates.
Research groups and institutes
- Artists’ Writings and Publications Research Centre (AWP)