Elena Gibson

Profile

I am a PhD researher in the School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies (FAHACS) at the University of Leeds. My research explores community heritage within historic houses, examining how local communities experience the past, present and future of such spaces. My case study is Wentworth Woodhouse, South Yorkshire, which I approach as a liminal space shaped by the diadic tensions between past and present, grandeur and decay, public and private, as well as preservation and transformation. My research considers how historic houses can become spaces for negotiating questions of belonging, identity, sustainablity and the future of heritage in the Age of the Anthropocene. I am developing the concept of meta-heritage, drawing on the Greek prefix μετά/meta and its multiple meanings of beyond, in relation to, amongst and after. Through this concept, I seek to identify heritage as a reflexive and relational condition through which communities negotiate the meanings of heritage and their place within changing sociocultural and environmental conditions of existence.

Alongside my research, I have experience working in museums, galleries and the heritage sector in Greece and the UK, working primarily with cultural institutions within Yorkshire. I currently work for Leeds Museums and Galleries, bringing practical experience of public engagement, collections and heritage interpretation to my academic work.

I have also been a Teaching Assistant within FAHACS, delivering seminars in the undergraduate modules Ways of Seeing, Ways of Thinking Seeing, and Art History as Practice, as well as in the School of Languages, Cultures & Societies, leading a seminar in Greek Art and Society. My teaching approach is informed by my professional experience in museums and galleries, and my interest in the ways art and heritage are experienced by different audiences.

Research interests

• Country house history

• Country house tourism

• Audience engagement and interpretation in heritage settings

• Cultural inclusivity and community heritage

• Ruinology and the aesthetics of decay

• Liminality and meta-heritage

• Heritage and Anthropocene

Qualifications

• MA Arts Management and Heritage Studies, University of Leeds
• BA History of Art with Museum and Art Gallery Studies, University of Leeds