I am an art and design historian who also makes art. I am a Principal Lecturer at the University of Brighton, where I have worked since 2007. I have been researching collective remakings of Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica in the 21st century. This interest started in 2012 when I became involved in a collective remaking of Picasso’s Guernica as a protest banner. This experience inspired me to seek out other groups of people who had been moved to work with Picasso’s iconic painting Guernica. You can read more about this on the page: About Guernica Remakings.
Since 2003 my research has focused on site specific art and curatorial practice. I have been investigating the ways in which art can raise questions about the formation of identities of people and place. I have studied the commissioning of artists in Britain to respond to museum collections that claim to represent the world. This investigation has revealed layers of political issues from Britain’s colonial past to the preoccupation with ethnicity, within New Labour’s multiculturalism, both of which involve classification of people and a focus on difference. This research underpinned my practice led doctorate at the University of Brighton that focused on post 1997 art and museum practice.
I graduated in 2002 from the University of Plymouth with a BA Hons in Visual Arts, which gave me interdisciplinary training in photography, printmaking, film making and book arts. I have made use of film documentary and digital technologies as research methodologies, investigating collaborative art practices and site specific community artworks. I have published in several journals, and have enjoyed co-authoring various publications. To learn more about my work go to: https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/nicola-ashmore