Conference Program

Ground floor Lecture theatre, Bourdon Building 177 Renfrew Street, Glasgow

Prof David Porter – Now an emeritus professor of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art, He is also a visiting professor at the University of Westminster. Until 2018 was professor of architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, studying changing patterns of habitation within inner Beijing with an international group of students. David has been instrumental in championing practice based doctoral networks within GSA and the UK. He was partner of Neave Brown who in 2017 was awarded the RIBA’s Royal Gold medal for his contribution to the architecture of housing. David was President of the Architectural Association from 2015-8 and is a trustee of the Jackson’s Lane performance space.

Ross Birrell is an artist, writer and lecturer. Current practice-led research revolves around the interrelations of art, philosophy, place, politics and music in the production of a series of solo and collaborative films, installation, site-specific interventions, text works, recordings, music compositions, writing. The current research project “Rodeo: Artist Films on R. B. Cunninghame Graham” is based upon the develpmend of a series of site-specific films which respond to the life and work of R. B. Cunninghame Graham (1852-1936), founder of the Scottish Labour Party, the first MP to declare himself a socialist in the Houses of Parliament and subsequent founder of the Scottish National Party. Cunninghame Graham was one of Scotland’s most colourful, dynamic, radical, multifaceted, modern, international literary and political figures who has been often overlooked at home but celebrated abroad, most notably in Argentina where Cunninghame Graham was known as Don Roberto and given a state funeral in 1936. Rodeo is developed in collaboration with Argentine film producer Carolina Blbao, Telemundo Executive and Creative Director of Cine Latino, based in Miam.

Mairi MacKenzie (Co-curator) is a fashion historian and curator based in Glasgow. She is Research Fellow in Fashion and Textiles at Glasgow School of Art, and a visiting lecturer at Liverpool School of Art and Design and Glasgow University. MacKenzie’s current research is concerned with the relationship between popular music and fashion; social and cultural histories of perfume; and the history of dressing up and going out in Glasgow. Her publications include Dream Suits: The Wonderful World of Nudie Cohn (Lannoo: 2011), Football, Fashion and Unpopular Culture: David Bowie’s influence on Liverpool Football Casuals (Routledge: 2019); The Inward Fragrance of Each Other’s Heart in ‘The Rose in Fashion: Ravishing’ by Amy de la Haye (Yale University Press, 2020): Perfume and Fantasy: Scent in Popular Culture and Everyday Life (Bloomsbury: Forthcoming). Her exhibitions include, Dream Suits at Mode Museum, Antwerp (2011) and Fashion Cultures Glasgow (2014, 2015). She recently acted as consultant curator for the current iteration of the Vitra Design exhibition, Night Fever: Designing Club Culture at V&A Dundee.

Beca Lipscombe (Co-Curator) (b. 1973, Edinburgh, lives and works in Edinburgh) is a fashion and textile designer, printmaker, and one half of Atelier E.B. A graduate of Central Saint Martins, Lipscombe’s professional practice is multi-layered and draws upon a vernacular aesthetic. This sensibility was evident in both her eponymous label (2000-2007) and her work as a freelance designer for various companies including Liberty, Chloe, Stella McCartney and Ann-Sofie Back. Until 2011 she taught on the MA Fashion+Textiles at The Glasgow School of Art stepping down from this post to concentrate on her own work and the work of her company Atelier E.B. which she runs in partnership with artist Lucy McKenzie (b. 1977, Glasgow, lives and works in Brussels). Lipscombe’s varied practice has included the production of fashion, commissioned display and interiors for public and private spaces, textiles, furniture and publishing.

Café Gandolfi, 64 Albion Street, Glasgow G1 1NY

Ross Sinclair is an artist, writer and musician who is Professor of Contemporary Art Practice within the School of Fine Art at The Glasgow School of Art. He is best known for his ‘Real Life’ research project initiated when he had the words REAL LIFE tattooed in black ink across his back, at Terry’s Tattoo parlour in Glasgow, 1994. Sinclair completed a PhD by Published Work in 2016 where he interrogated and articulated the innovative nature of the Real Life project, unusual in its scale and duration, defining the contribution to contemporary art practice across the fields of sculpture, painting, performance, installation, critical writing and music. Drawing on these multi-disciplinary methodologies Sinclair maps out the forms, materials and processes activated over almost 25 Years of Real Life Projects, that often combine unusual and unorthodox approaches challenging conventional modes of exhibition practice, enabling new means of engagement with the viewer. The multi part thesis submitted claims these routes as an autonomous, artist initiated project, connecting with the public at a dynamic intersection of ideas, context, performance and art-practice.