Dr Rachel Emily Taylor

Biography

Dr Rachel Emily Taylor (she/her) is an artist, writer, and researcher, and Reader in Illustration and Heritage at University of the Arts London.

She makes works that involve mis- or under-represented people from history, with a particular interest in how the past can be reconstructed, which she explores through collaborations with museums and archives.

In 2024, she published Illustration and Heritage. The book analyses the current and future role of contemporary illustration and its contribution to narrativizing histories. It offers definitions of both heritage and illustration, explores their intersections, shared concerns, and the contexts in which they co-exist.

She chaired the 14th International Illustration Research Symposium, Illustration & Heritage: Sharing Histories to Draw Out Futures, at University of the Arts London (22–23 November 2024). She also co-edited the Journal of Illustration Volume 13: Illustration & Heritage: Sharing Histories (13.1, June 2026) and Illustration & Heritage: Drawing out Futures (13.2, November 2026).

Her research explores how illustration can be an important investigative process and engagement strategy when working with heritage. She has fostered a close relationship with Museums, undertaking artist residencies and consultancy work at the Foundling Museum, Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Bowes Museum, the National Maritime Museum, and the Horniman Museum.

Rachel is interested in supervising and examining practice-led PhDs that explore:
- the activation of historical sites or places
- gaps, absences or silences in archival records
- representation and interpretation in museums
- lllustration as a method for historical inquiry
- oral history and the construction of historical voices

She is based in the Design School at CCW and has an office at 1 Wilson Road, Camberwell College of Arts.

www.rachelemilytaylor.co.uk