Mosquito Way
AL10 9EU Hatfield
England
The University of Hertfordshire has a vibrant and collaborative research culture. Multi-disciplinary research with practitioners and beyond is at the centre of our approach and we aim to tackle the key global challenges of our time.
Two important strands of investigation within the overarching theme of Heritage, Cultures and Communities come from research in the Contemporary Art Practice group and the Theorising Visual Art and Design group, both located with the School of Creative Arts.
Theorising Visual Art and Design (TVAD) is itself a multi and inter-disciplinary research group. The aim of TVAD is to explore the relationships between material, object, text, narrative and image as they emerge within contemporary art practice, including applied arts, design, film, and digital and text-based media.
TVAD research includes practice-led and practice-based methods, in addition to more traditional text-based historical and philosophical methods. Our research group is comprised of practitioners, historians and theorists and we collectively examine historiography, methodology, epistemology and pedagogy in the creative arts and design. TVAD has an emphasis on understanding the role and value of art in society and the relationship of art to democracy.
The TVAD research group is committed to fostering research that has public benefit, and to extending the impact of our research initiatives with academic colleagues and the wider general public.
Above: Photographs from The Hand Book, by Grace Lees-Maffei
