Dr Marsha Bradfield

Biography

I describe my practice as ‘riding the hyphen’ because I’m an artist-curator-(company) director-educator-researcher-writer and, and, and. . . . Value is the red thread stitching this activity together. I explore assets, use, worth and other evaluations to better understand interdependence.

I seek out diverse types of exchange. Sometimes I use pseudonyms and heteronyms to experiment with the performance of self and other identities. Whether a drawing, a publication or a startup, I increasingly avoid a signature style, at least one that is easily identified by its formal qualities.

I developed a praxis of dialogic art in my PhD research. This propelled the experiments in economies and ecologies of collaborative cultural production that composed my post-doctoral fellowship. Formations I’ve worked with include C3, Critical Practice, Cultures of Resilience, Incidental Unit. Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre, Precarious Workers Brigade, RadBots and REBEL (Recognising Experience-Based Education and Learning).

In 2016 I co-founded the Incidental Unit as the third iteration of the Artist Placement Group. We research and recognise creative practitioners kicking against the studio-gallery-auction circuit to differently understand the artist’s role in society. This post-artistic approach is both interdisciplinary and intercultural. It reimagines art as simultaneously useless and useful in a spirit of and/also. This type of practice values context and incidentally. It appreciates culture as diffuse, spread across identity, location, work, leisure, class, ability, technology, learning and more.

Before leading MA Intercultural Practices at Central Saint Martins, I was the pathway leader of MA Computational Arts at Camberwell College of Arts. A fruitful fellowship in AI with the 2020 BeFantastic tech art triennial in Bangalore led to a body of work featured by the Science Gallery and India Art Fair. Working internationally and interculturally wraps with my overarching fascination with authorship and/as interdependence.

I welcome interest from collaborators and prospective MA and PhD students who are grappling with issues aligned with my diverse lines of practice-based/led enquiry in art, design, curating, performance and their education and organisation. Please email me at marsha.bradfield@arts.ac.uk