Dr Simon Faulkner  

Simon is Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Contemporary Art History. He was formerly the route leader for the MA in Visual Culture. He was awarded a PhD, 'A Cultural Economy of British Art: 1958-1966’ in 1999.

Simon's undergraduate teaching for the History of Art and Design degree (recently replaced by the new Contemporary Art History degree) has focussed on recent developments in photographic practice and theory, and visual and spatial cultures of conflict, with a particular emphasis upon artistic interventions into conflict situations. This teaching has reflected a broad knowledge of twentieth century art and visual culture, and a concern with the politics of contemporary visual forms. His undergraduate teaching has also encompassed concerns with relationships between visual culture and collective memory, and visual culture and formations of race and nation. For the Contemporary Art History degree he will be teaching units such as 'The Use of Images' that addresses general issues related to pictorial representation and the use and circulation of images. This degree is also strongly concerned with relationships between history, theory and practice. This concern relates to Simon's ongoing interest in working with artists and photographers on joint projects and is linked to the role of the Contemporary Art History team as the provider of Historical and Critical Contexts teaching to practice students from the rest of the Faculty of Art and Design.

Simon's postgraduate teaching on MA Visual Culture has covered a range of concerns, including issues of representation and responsibility, relationships between word and image, visual culture and human geography, cultural memory, and the role of visibility and aesthetics within political practices. See the MA Visual Culture blog - 'viscultblog": http://viscultblog.wordpress.com/

Simon has a teaching blog, related to both his undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, and his current research interests, called 'Simon's teaching blog': http://simonsteachingblog.wordpress.com/

Simon has supervised three PhDs to completion and welcome research students in the areas of mid-twentieth century British art, relationships between visual culture, race, and nationhood, visual images and cultural memory, the visual representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and relationships between contemporary art and visual activism.

His past research has been focussed on aspects of British art during the mid-twentieth century in particular contemporary art and commercial culture in the mid-1960s, R. B. Kitaj, David Hockney, John Minton, and British Pop Art.

His current interests are focussed on visual practices and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict/Israeli occupation. In this context he is interested in photographers such as Gilad Ophir, Roi Kuper, Miki Kratsman, Eldad Rafaeli, Rula Halawani, Gaston Zvi Ickowicz, Tarek Al Ghoussein, and Yazan Alkhalili, and the paintings of David Reeb, Larry Abramson, and Gilad Efrat, as well as more conceptual, or site-specific projects produced by artists such as Ronen Eidelman, Khaled Hourani, Khaled Jarrar, and Vera Tamari. Also important in this area is a concern with visual activism and the Israeli occupation in the work of ActiveStills, Artists Without Walls, the 'Liminal Spaces' project, the'Decolonising Architecture' project, and the archival/curatorial work of Ariella Azoulay and Hagit Keysar. Recent research has concentrated on Israeli visual producers, but current and future field work will encompass the work of Palestinian photographers and artists working in Jerusalem and the West Bank, especially Ramallah. My interest in relationships between visual images and the Israeli occupation also extends to research on the photographic representation of the West Bank Wall by artists, the press, and by amateurs on photo-sharing websites.

Research in this area has involved the organisation of the first UK showing of the exhibition 'Desert Generation: 40 Years of Occupation, 1967-2007, Israeli and Palestinian Artists Against the Occupation and for a Just Peace' in the Holden Gallery at Manchester Metropolitan University in April 2008. This exhibition was accompanied by a one-day conference entitled 'Art, Visual Culture, and the Israeli Occupation' in May 2008. For details see www.holdengallery.mmu.ac.uk/desertgeneration.php

Simon is also interested in working with artists and photographers. At present this interest is developing through an artist/writer's book project with the Israeli artist David Reeb see: www.davidreeb.com

In May and June 2010 Simon was a writer in residence at the Digital Art Lab in Holon, Israel. During this time he engaged in further field-work and worked on the book project with David Reeb. See: http://www.digitalartlab.org.il/Residency.asp
A second leg of this residency was spent at the Digital Art Lab in August and September 2011.

Simon has been an external examiner for the BA in Visual Culture at Middlesex University (1999-2003) and the BA in Visual Culture at the University of Brighton (2003-2007). He is on the advisory board for Visual Culture in Britain and has edited a special issue of Visual Culture in Britain on ‘Travel and Visual Culture’, April 2003.

Recent conference papers, research papers, and panel presentations:
'Creative resistance and image events: The village of Bil'in in the West Bank', Visiting Speaker Seminar, Department of Media and Communication, the University of Leicester, May 2011

'Picasso in Palestine: Art and the Border Question', Remaking Borders, First EastBordNet Conference, Monastero dei Benedettini, Catania, January 2011

'Image Events in Bil'in', MeCCSA Annual Conference, The University of Salford, January 2011

'Photography, citizenship and the Israeli occupation', Media, Communication and the Spectacle Conference, European Communication Research and Education Association, Eramus University, Rotterdam, November 2009

'Images, acts, and questions: Defining and teaching visual culture' and 'Fields of conflict/fields of vision', Visualizing Visual Cultural Studies at BZU Seminar, Birzeit University, March 2009

'Photography at the Hawara Checkpoint', MeCCSA Annual Conference, University of Bradford, January 2009

'The Writing on the Wall: Street Art and Political Activism', UK Jewish Film Festival, SOAS, November 2008

'Photography and the Citizens and Non-citizens of Israel', Culture and Citizenship Conference (CRESC), St Hugh's College Oxford, September 2008

'Painting the words of the occupation', Sites of Conflict Symposium, Nottingham University, July 2008

'Picturing the West Bank Wall', Art, Visual Culture and the Israeli Occupation Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, May 2008

'Late Photography, Military Landscape, and Time', Contested Landscape Conference, Shenkar College, Ramat Gan, March 2008

'Wall Pictures', MeCCSA Annual Conference, Cardiff University, January 2008

‘Writing the occupation in photographs’, Dialogue Under Occupation II Conference, Al-Quds University, Jerusalem, November 2007

‘Photography, Engagement and the Israeli Occupation’, Interrogating Terror Conference, University of Brighton, September 2007

‘Necropolis: Photography, memory and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’, War in Our World Conference, CIDRA, University of Manchester, July 2007

‘Art, Visibility, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’, Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, May 2007

'Intimations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the photographs of Roi Kuper and Gilad Ophir’, Aftermath Images: Location and Memory in Post-Conflict Representations symposium, Location, Memory and the Visual Research Group, Manchester Metropolitan University, May 2007

‘David Reeb: Painting, Photography, Occupation’, Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, University of Ulster, April 2007

'Necropolis: Photography and memories of Israel/Palestine’, Social History Society Annual Conference, University of Exeter, March 2007

‘Painting the words of the occupation: Image-text relationships in the work of David Reeb’, Language, Ideology and Power Research Group, Department of Discourse Studies, University of Lancaster, March 2007

‘Re-viewing Occupation: Art, Photojournalism and Israel’, Dialogue Under Occupation Conference, Northwestern Illinois University, November, 2006

‘Painting in an Occupying Society’, Visual Culture Research Seminars, University of Northumbria, June, 2006

Conference strands and events organised:
'Art, Visual Culture and the Israeli Occupation' One-Day Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, May 2008

'Aftermath Images: Location and Memory in Post-Conflict Representations' symposium (organised with Fionna Barber), Centre for the Study of Location, Memory and the Visual, Manchester Metropolitan University, May 2007

One of the organisers of the 'Politics of Cultural Memory' conference at Manchester Metropolitan University, November 2004

‘Visual Representation and the Politics of Memory’ strand for the Annual Association of Art Historians Conference, April 2004

‘Visual Cultures of Landscape’ strand for the Annual Association of Art Historians Conference, April 2003

‘Whiteness’ strand for the Visual Culture in Britain Conference (organised with Lorna Healy), Tate Britain, September 2002

‘Visualising Whiteness’, with Lorna Healy, Tate Britain, February 2001

‘Visual Culture at the End of Empire’, session for the Visual Culture in a Changing Society: Britain, 1940-2000 Conference, University of Northumbria, July 2000

‘Picturing Political Histories’, Corner House, Manchester, November 1996