James Bell
James is an artist, educator, and researcher, with a background in education and production in artist-led and contemporary art organisations.
James’s research focuses on histories of feminist and queer cultural activism in contemporary art practice, and the ways in which artworks mediate feminist and LGBTQIA+ archives.
James holds a PhD from Northumbria University in Visual and Material Culture (2021); a BA (Hons) Time Based Art (2010) and an MFA from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee (2011). He has been a committee member of artist-led spaces Generator, Dundee (2011—12), and Rhubaba, Edinburgh (2013—15). He was the Producer (Learning) at Collective, Edinburgh (2013—17), researching, developing and delivering the contemporary art organisation’s learning programme; and served on the Board of Baltic Street Adventure Playground, Glasgow (2015—18). Previous selected artistic projects include: Aye, and Gomorrah…, Rhubaba, Edinburgh (2017); The Sphere, part of Of Other Spaces, Cooper Gallery, Dundee (2016).
Since 2020, James has been a Visiting Lecturer on the joint MLitt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art), at Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow, previously undertaking a Course Coordination role (late-2021); and is currently a Teaching Fellow in Contemporary Art Theory and Practice at Edinburgh College of Art, the University of Edinburgh, teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the School of Art.
James’s research focuses on histories of feminist and queer cultural activism in contemporary art practice, and the ways in which artworks mediate feminist and LGBTQIA+ archives.
James holds a PhD from Northumbria University in Visual and Material Culture (2021); a BA (Hons) Time Based Art (2010) and an MFA from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee (2011). He has been a committee member of artist-led spaces Generator, Dundee (2011—12), and Rhubaba, Edinburgh (2013—15). He was the Producer (Learning) at Collective, Edinburgh (2013—17), researching, developing and delivering the contemporary art organisation’s learning programme; and served on the Board of Baltic Street Adventure Playground, Glasgow (2015—18). Previous selected artistic projects include: Aye, and Gomorrah…, Rhubaba, Edinburgh (2017); The Sphere, part of Of Other Spaces, Cooper Gallery, Dundee (2016).
Since 2020, James has been a Visiting Lecturer on the joint MLitt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art), at Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow, previously undertaking a Course Coordination role (late-2021); and is currently a Teaching Fellow in Contemporary Art Theory and Practice at Edinburgh College of Art, the University of Edinburgh, teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the School of Art.
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Papers by James Bell
In 'Of Other Spaces: When Does Gesture Become Event?,' edited Sophia Yadong Hao, commissioned by Cooper Gallery, DJCAD, published Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2019.
In Sharon Hayes’ installation, In My Little Corner of the World, Anyone Would Love You (2016), films of queer and trans folk reciting extracts of letters between feminist, lesbian and effeminist political collectives in the US and UK from 1955—77, are projected onto hoarding in gallery spaces. The extracts were taken from documents held in the Lesbian Archive, at Glasgow Women’s Library, and their mediation by Hayes’ elicits what Elizabeth Freeman terms as ‘temporal drag’. The paper will consider modes of queer organising and politics enacted across time, through desires and latent knowledges found in the archive, exploring how contemporary artists like Hayes speak these voices in the present. Starting with the histories of grassroots publishing, such as Arena Three, a British lesbian magazine, the paper will trace the emergent lesbian politics at the time of publishing that informed Hayes’ work. Alongside an exploration of the archive material, a charting of the conditions of the making of the work, specifically Hayes’ relationship with Glasgow Women’s Library and their feminist archival practice, will provide an understanding of what politics are at stake in the present. To aid this, the paper will draw on queer conceptions of the archive and time, by thinkers such as Ann Cvetkovich, Kate Eichhorn, Elizabeth Freeman and Giovanna Zapperi. Specifically, ideas such as Freeman’s ‘binding’, that describes temporalities structured around bodily desires, complicates understandings of a then and now when discussing queer genealogies. The paper ultimately seeks to bridge what was said then and what it means for Hayes’ to say it now as a project of radical queer cultural activism.
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1 Elizabeth Freeman, Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 66.
Book Reviews by James Bell
In 'Of Other Spaces: When Does Gesture Become Event?,' edited Sophia Yadong Hao, commissioned by Cooper Gallery, DJCAD, published Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2019.
In Sharon Hayes’ installation, In My Little Corner of the World, Anyone Would Love You (2016), films of queer and trans folk reciting extracts of letters between feminist, lesbian and effeminist political collectives in the US and UK from 1955—77, are projected onto hoarding in gallery spaces. The extracts were taken from documents held in the Lesbian Archive, at Glasgow Women’s Library, and their mediation by Hayes’ elicits what Elizabeth Freeman terms as ‘temporal drag’. The paper will consider modes of queer organising and politics enacted across time, through desires and latent knowledges found in the archive, exploring how contemporary artists like Hayes speak these voices in the present. Starting with the histories of grassroots publishing, such as Arena Three, a British lesbian magazine, the paper will trace the emergent lesbian politics at the time of publishing that informed Hayes’ work. Alongside an exploration of the archive material, a charting of the conditions of the making of the work, specifically Hayes’ relationship with Glasgow Women’s Library and their feminist archival practice, will provide an understanding of what politics are at stake in the present. To aid this, the paper will draw on queer conceptions of the archive and time, by thinkers such as Ann Cvetkovich, Kate Eichhorn, Elizabeth Freeman and Giovanna Zapperi. Specifically, ideas such as Freeman’s ‘binding’, that describes temporalities structured around bodily desires, complicates understandings of a then and now when discussing queer genealogies. The paper ultimately seeks to bridge what was said then and what it means for Hayes’ to say it now as a project of radical queer cultural activism.
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1 Elizabeth Freeman, Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 66.