Community and facilities

PhD students making collages. Close up shot of magazines on a table, with hands around the table cutting and sticking material from the magazines. — © Sarah 'Smizz' Smith

We recognise that research needs vibrant and open-minded communities, and that students and projects flourish in conversations and critical debate.

Our students take part in many overlapping communities: in studios, in outward-looking projects with other students, in supervision, in discipline-specific seminars and workshops, in the renowned Transmission and Gravity lecture programmes, in interdisciplinary training, teaching undergraduate students and working with other staff researchers, as well as with other practitioners nationally and internationally.

Facilities

Our students have access to art studios at S1 Artspace in the iconic Park Hill estate, and some students work in the specialist design for health organisation Lab4Living. The students have a light and warm shared office space with beautiful views of the city and Park Hill. Students also have access to specialist production spaces, digital labs, bookable study spaces and Hallam’s learning centre and library.

PhD workspace at Sheffield Hallam's ADMRC. A light and spacious office with rolling chairs arranged along a white bench. The bench is against a window, and the window is covered by a series of large posters hanging from the ceiling.

Gallery at S1 Artspace. A light-filled room with bare walls and wood floor. There is work on the floor and on the walls. You can see a trestle and table with colourful fabrics draped over them; two black chairs either side of a low table; two video screens on another low table; and two large posters on the back wall.

PhD students in a workshop space. The space has a concrete floor, exposed steel beams and lighting frames beneath a high ceiling, and two large porcelain sinks on the back wall. Students are gathered around a central table, some standing and some sitting. In the background you can see ladders, small scaffolds, and piles of timber and white wooden panels. — All images © Sarah 'Smizz' Smith

Supervision

Supervision happens in teams, often drawing together art, design and media researchers with specialists in relevant other fields including architecture, communications, humanities, education and healthcare.

Training happens in overlapping contexts, including specialist practice-based training, interdisciplinary training with humanities, communications and media students, and generic university level training. Once a year we hold an interdisciplinary PhD conference where students explore two major alternating themes: an exploration of research processes, and a critical reflection on research impact, or value.

Our students tend to be highly active in their disciplinary communities, organising exhibitions and conferences, publishing, and working with other research students in other institutions.

Partners

Much of our students' work faces outwards in local and national partnerships, and involves developing knowledge that passes through the university walls. Our partners include S1 Artspace, Site Gallery, William Morris Gallery London, and the V&A and English Heritage through AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards. Hallam art and design PhD students also studied within the AHRC Heritage Consortium.

Projects

Recent projects led by our PhD students include a student-led exhibition exploring the complexity of presenting ‘research’, a publication on ‘double-agency’ where students explore professional-researcher dual identities, and a conference on Visibility. Staff-led PhD projects include an exhibition examining the academic poster, and oHPo, a radio station for art school, devised to draw people together and create spaces of dissemination in a pandemic context.