Asymmetry PhD Scholarship at Goldsmiths

We are delighted to announce our open call for the Asymmetry PhD Scholarship in the “Advanced Practices” programme at the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London.

About the PhD Scholarship
Beginning in the academic year of Autumn 2024, we are offering a bespoke, fully funded Scholarship in the innovative PhD programme “Advanced Practices” at Goldsmiths. The four-year placement is a unique academic opportunity within the field of curatorial practices and cross-cultural research, awarded to one successful candidate who identifies to any extent with Chinese and Sinophone cultures and identities, based in the regions or internationally.

The Scholarship fully covers four years of the PhD programme, including tuition fees, monthly rent and living costs. The ideal candidate will be an academically determined art professional, an inventive thinker with a background in curatorial studies and/or contemporary art and relevant work experience. While we are open to all applications, we strongly welcome applicants with work experience and innovative project portfolios or academic publications.

About the PhD programme
“Advanced Practices” is a new post graduate research programme in the Department of Visual Cultures (Goldsmiths, University of London) that brings together transdisciplinary research and practice. It explores the intersections between core ideas in contemporary culture and the ways they shape and entangle with practices. The programme views practices beyond the ability to make and produce and towards capacities to give form to experiences of knowledge. While mainly idea driven rather than studio based, the programme aids in conceptualising new formats of PhD research and new ways of submitting this work.

The “Advanced Practices” programme has emerged in response to the research turn in the arts—artistic activity propelled by exploring, inventing and restaging knowledge formats. “Advanced Practices” is the term the programme is using for understanding what constitutes the grounds for practice and asking how practices move forward or “advance” to offer forms of contemporary entanglement. The programme is taught and supervised by Prof. Irit Rogoff, Dr. Adnan Madani, and Dr. Adrian Heathfield.

Seminars are taught six times a year, encouraging those working in the field to be able to maintain their work. This is a practice-driven and research-based programme that can incorporate projects in progress, collaborations with organisations, and platforms. It can also be an opportunity to rethink the circulation and meaning of how/to whom work is communicated, and to put forms of transdisciplinarity and trans-operationality into practice. The Department of Visual Cultures is a small but vibrant research-active department in the School of Culture and Society at Goldsmiths, comprised of globally acclaimed researchers, artists, and curators from across many fields.

For more information on Goldsmiths’ PhD programme, visit the departmental website here or the “Advanced Practices” website here. For term dates, please visit here. Application deadline: March 6, 2024 / Scholarship duration: Autumn 2024–28.

Requirements, timeline, guidelines
For the application package, please submit:
–The completed Asymmetry PhD Scholarship Application Form
–Your current CV, outlining academic career, previous employment history, past exhibition projects, residencies, awards, publications, and public programming (such as talks, symposia, workshops, etc.)
–A cover letter summarising your motivation to obtain a PhD in “Advanced Practices”, your desired research direction and how our PhD Scholarship would benefit you (500 words)
–A portfolio of previous projects
–A writing sample of your MA dissertation (3000–5000 words) and a further writing sample free of choice, including but not limited to exhibition reviews, opinion papers and essays (min. 700 words)
–English Language requirement:
If English is not your native language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification) of 6.5 with a 6.5 in writing and no element lower than 6.0 to study this programme.
–Optional: A sample of an academic publication (500–1500 words)

Please send in your complete PhD Scholarship application package via e-mail to scholarship [​at​] asymmetryart.org.

Application language and material must be submitted in English. Please note that the file size should not exceed a total of ten MB. Application deadline: March 6, 2024.

To watch the recording of the previous live Zoom Q&A sessions about the “Advanced Practices” programme and the Asymmetry PhD Scholarship, please visit here.

Partner: Goldsmiths, University of London.

About Asymmetry
Asymmetry is a London-based independent, non-profit foundation dedicated to nurturing curatorial practice and disseminating knowledge about Chinese and Sinophone contemporary art. Asymmetry works regionally and internationally, promoting meaningful exchange between creative practitioners, institutions, and audiences to enable pioneering research, collaboration, production, and participation.