AHRC Techne funded Collaborative Doctoral Award (Kingston University/Wellcome Collection).

Kingston School of Art & Wellcome Collection invite applications for an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Partnership studentship.

This is offered under the AHRC/TECHNE Doctoral Training Partnership Scheme, to begin in October 2025.

We invite expressions of interest that engage with the following proposed project:

Reaching to the stars: astrology and the body in the past, present and future

Context:

Current health and environmental crises heighten our awareness of the positioning of the human body within the global scale of disease transmission & climate emergency. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for health and wellbeing, social inclusion and environment, and World Health Organization and UNESCO initiatives emphasise interrelationships between planetary & human health. Past cultures were also sensitised to the nuanced relationship between the individual human (microcosm) and the universe (macrocosm), engaged in activities of observation, measurement, mapping & scrutiny. Exploration of these knowledges offers opportunities to reappraise parallel contemporary perceptions and experiences. Centred on Wellcome Collection’s rich holdings relating to astrology, health and the body, the PhD will be a landmark project that will be Wellcome’s first CDA in the creative arts. The project will focus on Wellcome’s medieval European manuscripts & printed books, unique materials that reveal ideas about how the movements of the planets & the phases of the sun & moon directly impacted on health.

Research Questions:

How can expanded art practice communicate the value of historical collections for understanding contemporary relationships to the body, offering audiences new understandings of their own health & wellbeing?

How might the mobilisation of European ideas about the observational relationship between macrocosm & microcosm provoke interventions into contemporary discourses on alternative health, wellbeing, and the relationship between self and planet?

How can such practice place historical European ideas of bodily health in dialogue with global communities, gendered discourses on the body, and changing definitions of illness & disability?

Methods:

The project will be situated in expanded art practice (encompassing, eg., writing, performance, visual-art). The candidate will determine the theoretical framing of the project, but potential approaches include historical & art historical methodologies, medical and environmental humanities, autoethnographic practice, new materialism, disability studies, crip theory, & decolonial & feminist practices.

Outputs:

The final submission will take the form of multimodal expanded art-practice that communicates to public audiences (at Wellcome Collection and beyond) through performance, publication or display.

Student Eligibility

A postgraduate degree in a relevant field is highly desirable.  

Candidates will need to evidence experience in working across different creative forms, although it may be that formal qualifications or existing professional practice prioritise one particular mode of expression. Experience of working with community or cultural organisations will be valuable but is not a requirement.

Given the focus on health and wellbeing and the potential for autoethnographic work, the project will welcome applications from candidates with lived experience of vulnerability, chronic illness and/or disability.

Applicants must satisfy AHRC eligibility requirements and terms and conditions.

Award includes home rate tuition rate only and a stipend towards living expenses. International students are eligible to apply. However, UKRI funding will not cover the difference in international fees set by universities. 

How to apply

For informal enquires about the project contact:

Sara Upstone (S.Upstone@kingston.ac.uk); Daniela Perazzo (D.Perazzo@kingston.ac.uk)

For application guidance & full details of eligibility and funding please visit:

Research degree funding opportunities at Kingston School of Art

Please send your expression of interest for this project by email to: KSAresearch-applications@kingston.ac.uk

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