Biography
I received my Licentiate (BA+MA) degree in Art History from Universidad de Oviedo (Spain) in 2001, after which I began working in the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Santander and in the Juan Silio Art Gallery (Spain). During this period, I specialised in Contemporary Art, worked with international contemporary artists, trained in Art Valuation and curated temporary exhibitions for public and private institutions. My experience with artists and collections management was key when I returned to Universidad de Oviedo in 2010 for my PhD, where I researched the figure of contemporary landscape painter Eduardo Sanz Fraile (1928-2013) and created the Catalogue raisonné of his work. I was awarded my doctoral degree in 2015 with Cum Laude and International Honours.
Since 2015 I have also served in Bader College’s management structure, initially as Experiential Learning Manager and currently as Head of Teaching and Learning. In this capacity I have championed the integration of active and experiential learning in the academic curriculum, and led the academic team in the implementation of Universal Design for Leaning strategies.
Research Interests
As a researcher, I have always been curious about the fine line between high and decorative art(s). My research is primarily focused on collection management and conservation. In recent years a combination of personal passion and research opportunities allowed me to apply my accumulated background knowledge and skills to a variety of costume, textiles, and decorative arts’ collections, leading me to collaborate with a local institution in the development of a curatorial and research project looking at pre-1930’s headgear, and in the cataloguing of the collection of heritage and artistic objects at Herstmonceux Castle.
Additionally, in 2021 I joined the transdisciplinary project Environments of Change as co-investigator, with the Making sense of Experiential Learning. Strategies to support students in the identification of learning skills research project, where I worked to identify models for students’ self-awareness of learning and developing strategies to enhance this process. Environment of Change is a collaborative research project supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC.
Supervision
I can supervise projects on:
- Collection management and preventive conservation
- Costume and decorative arts in the Modern and Contemporary periods
- Collectors and the market of art and artistic objects
- Teaching and Learning – Models and implementation of Experiential and Active Learning strategies; Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Recent Publications
Peer Reviewed
- Azul Mar Mahon. La trayectoria artística del pintor Eduardo Sanz (Blue Sea Blue. The painter Eduardo Sanz’s artistic trajectory), Santander: Geslican. Montañas de Papel, 2018.
- “Tradición, exilio y vanguardia: los años formativos de Eduardo Sanz” (Tradition, exile, and avant-garde: the formative years of Eduardo Sanz), XXI Congreso CEHA Congreso Nacional de Historia del Arte, 665-679, Santander: Universidad de Cantabria, 2018.
- “Eduardo Sanz o la memoria del mar: el exilio como reinterpretación del patrimonio cultural de las comunidades marineras del norte de España” (Eduardo Sanz or the memory of the sea: exile as a reinterpretation of Northern Spain’s maritime cultural heritage), IV Coloquio Internacional de Doctorandos del CES Coimbra C: Dialogar com os Tempos e os Lugares do(s) Mundo(s), Portugal: Universidade de Coimbra, 2013.
- “El paisaje del faro como referencia literaria en la pintura de Eduardo Sanz: Virginia Woolf, Joseph Conrad y Julio Verne” (The lighthouse as a literary reference in the painting of Eduardo Sanz: Virginia Woolf, Joseph Conrad and Jules Verne), III Congreso Internacional Escrituras Silenciadas: el paisaje como historiografía, 547-555, Spain: Universidad de Alcalá
Conferences & Workshops
- “Vogue! Royalty and Fashion“, Public lecture, (May 2022) Bader College, UK.
- “BISC-MAH Collaborations: Experiential Leaning and International Collaborations”, Festival of Ideas, (June 2021) University of Sussex, UK.
- “Why Art History? Experiential learning and female employability in in the 21st-Century Art School”, Critical Pedagogies in the Neoliberal University: Expanding the feminist field in the 21st-century art school, Association for Art History Annual Conference (April 2019) University of Sussex & University of Brighton, UK.
- “Addressing the Experiential Learning model in the classroom: An example of course design and implementation in Art History”, 2018 ECAH -European Conference for Arts and Humanities (July 2018) Brighton, UK.
- “Topics and methodology in art history research”, Public lecture (Nov. 2015) Bader College, UK.
- “Experiential Learning in Higher Education”, Public lecture, (Oct. 2015) Bader College, UK.