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Staff Profile

Dr Emma Coffield

Background

Background

Emma Coffield is a Lecturer in the School of Arts and Cultures at Newcastle University and the Deputy Degree Programme Director for the MA programmes in Curating Art, Museum Studies and Global Heritage Management. She has an AHRC sponsored PhD in Museum Studies, an MA in Art Museum and Gallery Education (both from Newcastle University) and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art (Painting and Printmaking) from the Glasgow School of Art.

Emma's research focuses on artist-run/led initiatives and forms of self-organisation in the arts. This has led to a number of recent projects on and around the issue of meanwhile space in the arts, and the ways in which 'employability' might be understood and experienced by students and recent graduates in the cultural and creative industries.


Working groups:

Emma convenes the Meanwhile Space Research Cluster, based within the Institute for Creative Arts Practice (NICAP) at Newcastle University. You can email Emma to join the mailing list, or find out more at https://research.ncl.ac.uk/meanwhilespace/. Emma is also part of the 'Collaborate' Steering Group with colleagues from the NewBridge Project (https://thenewbridgeproject.com/events/the-collective-studio/).


Previous roles and responsibilities:

  • Employability and Enterprise Lead for SACS (2019-2022)
  • SACS Athena Swan committee (2017-18)
  • Co-convenor of the Cultural Significance of Place Faculty Research Group (2012-18)


Research

Research outline

For over 15 years, Emma has worked with artist-run/led initiatives and self-organised practices - or informal groups, collectives and grassroots organisations run by and for artists - in the UK. As part of this work, Emma has led multiple transdisciplinary projects exploring the impact and experience of 'meanwhile space'. These projects typically bring together artists of all disciplines, academics, local policy-makers and interested others together in order to foster long-term, co-developed futures. You can find out about this work at https://morethanmeanwhile.wordpress.com or come along to the Meanwhile Space Research Cluster meetings (https://research.ncl.ac.uk/meanwhilespace/).


Emma has also worked for a number of years with Dr Katie Markham (and others) to develop critical understandings of 'employability' in the cultural and creative industries, and to understand how teaching for employability is experienced by students and recent graduates.


Currently, Emma is working on: FLOURISH (a multidisciplinary, collaborative project that surveys and critically re-imagines urban creative and cultural activity in Gateshead, led by Dr Rebecca Prescott with Dr Alexander Wilson and Dr Philippa Carter), a project aiming to enagage grassroots artists with Creative Central Ncl, and a SACS funded impact project that will assess the impact of brokered 'meeting space' in the arts.


Emma has co-authored a reader in museum and gallery studies (Art Museum and Gallery Studies: The Basics with Prof Rhiannon Mason and Dr Alistair Robinson in 2018).


Recent projects

PI - Assessing the impact of sustained engagement: Does brokering ‘meeting space’ between grassroots arts and local government work? (£2,447) Funded by the School of Arts and Cultures (SACS) School Impact Fund. January-June 2025 with Dr Paul Richter, Dr Julia Heslop and The NewBridge Project.

Co-I - Analysing hyperlocal impacts of artistic/cultural organisations: The case of The NewBridge Project (£10,000) Funded by the School Challenge Based Fund (SCBRF), Newastle University Business School. April-June 2024 with Dr Paul Richter, Prof Alison Stenning and The NewBridge Project.

Co-I - Developing and Understanding The Environment Within Which Creative Initiatives Can Flourish (£165,000) UK Government Strategic Prosperity Fund. May 2023-May 2025 with Dr Rebecca Prescott, Dr Zander Wilson and project partners Gateshead Metropolitain Borough Council, the National Trust, Tyne and Wear Building Preservation Trust, Newcastle University and Northumbria University. https://www.flourishgateshead.com/

Co-I - Engaging grassroots arts practitioners with the North of Tyne Cultural and Creative Zones (CCZs) (£13,351) Funded by QR Policy Support Fund. Jan 2023-June 2024 with Rachel Pattinson and Dr Loes Veldpaus. Research Assistant: Daniel Newberry

Co-I - Collaborate: Skills and talent development pathways for creative practitioners (£534,446) Funded by the North of Tyne Investment Fund. June 2022 - May 2025 with the NewBridge Project and Newcastle University.

PI - Engaging the Grassroots Art Sector with the Clayton Street Corridor (£15,334.90) Funded by Newcastle City Council. March 2022-December 2022 with Dr Paul Richter, Dr Rebecca Prescott, David Butler, Dr Loes Veldpaus, Prof Venda Pollock, Andrew Rothwell, Ed Banks, Rebecca Huggan, Tom Hopkin, Lee Etherington, Nadia Iftkhar. Research Assistants: Hannah Marsden and Daniel Newberry https://morethanmeanwhile.wordpress.com/the-clayton-street-corridor/ (Extended until April 2025)

PI - Re-thinking employability during COVID-19: Exploring graduate outcomes and experiences in the museum, gallery and heritage sector (£1,364) SACS Funded. March 2020-December 2020 with Dr Katie Markham (PI) and Jess Crossby (Co-I).

PI - More Than Meanwhile Collaboration (£5,000). ESRC IAA, October 2020 - March 2021 with Dr Paul Richter, Rebecca Huggan, David Butler, Dr Rebecca Prescott, and The NewBridge Project. Research Assistant: Dr Alix Ferrer-Yulfo

Co-I - Mapping Gateshead (£7,598.85). ESRC IAA, November 2020 - March 2021 with Dr Rebecca Prescott, Dr Alexander Wilson, Gateshead Council and GT3 Architects. https://www.flourishgateshead.com/work-1/mappinggateshead

PI - More Than Meanwhile Spaces II (£11,509.28). ESRC IAA, April 2019 - March 2020 with Dr Paul Richter, Rebecca Huggan, David Butler, Dr Edward Wainwright, Dr Rebecca Prescott, The NewBridge Project and Newcastle City Council. Research Assistants: Dan Goodman and Julie Monroe https://morethanmeanwhile.wordpress.com/mtms-ii/

PI - Beyond Employability: Enabling Professional Cultural Identities (£9,506). SACS funded, April 2018 - July 2019

PI - More Than Meanwhile Spaces: Long-Term Business Models for Artists in the City (£5,075). ESRC IAA, March 2018-March 2019 with Dr Paul Richter, Rebecca Huggan, David Butler, Dr Edward Wainwright, Dr Rebecca Prescott and The NewBridge Project. Research Assistant: Dr Katie Markham https://morethanmeanwhile.wordpress.com/mtms-i/

PI - Early Career Academic Fellowship. SACS funded, September 2018-May 2020.

Co-I - Paths Across Waters (£3,214). Being Human (incl. SSRF/HCA grants). March 2017 - November 2017

RA - Artist Rooms Interfaces (£2,206) SSRF funded with Professor Christopher Whitehead. June 2015 - May 2016. 


Exhibitions

Paths Across Waters: Lost Stories of Tyneside and the Caribbean (2017) - An exhibition and event series designed and curated in collaboration with Dr Vanessa Mongey (History Classics and Archaeology) and Old Low Light Heritage Centre as part of Being Human, the UK's only national festival of the humanities. 

Newcastle City Futures: People Place Change (2015) - A multi-media exhibition and events series with colleagues Prof. Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Anne Fry, Dhruv Sookhoo and David Mitchell (School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape) that explored built (and unbuilt) heritage in Newcastle/Gateshead in the post 1940s up to the present. Winner of the Royal Town Planning Institutes's 'Chair's Award' in 2015. The project also informed the report Newcastle City Futures 2065: Anchoring Universities in Cities through Urban Foresight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhsNsS4iHZU


Public talks and conferences

Emma has given a number of public talks and conference papers talks on the above work, including:

  • Visiting Speaker Programme (Newcastle Fine Art Department, 2025)
  • Have Some Imagination: Towards a Manifesto for Arts Education (BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead 2025)
  • Creative Spaces (with the Guild of Media Arts and York Creatives, 2024)
  • ARIs in Spaces and Places, part of the research network on Artist-Run Initiatives in Britain, funded by the British Art Network (University of Glasgow, 2023)
  • MCH Engagement and Impact (Newcastle University, 2023)
  • kNOw One Place, Creative Placemaking Forum (The Stove Network, Dumfries, 2022)
  • Newcastle University Enterprise Academy (Newcastle University, 2022)
  • Creative Placemaking Digital Programme (The Stove Network, Dumfries, 2022)
  • Re-thinking Temporary, Pop-Up and Meanwhile Spaces, Creative Fuse (Northumbria University, 2022)
  • Making Space / Keeping Space: an honest exchange on how to make adaptive reuse for culture happen (Newcastle University, OpenHeritage at Pop Recs, Sunderland, 2022)
  • Wor Culture: Re-thinking the High Street - What Role for Arts and Culture? (Newcastle University, 2021)
  • The Cultural and Creative Industries Pathways Beyond Economic Growth seminar series [Discussant] (2021)
  • Wor Culture: Freelancing [chair] (Newcastle University, 2020)
  • What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About The Artist-Led (Exhibition Research Lab Symposium, Liverpool School of Art and Design, Liverpool 2020)
  • Interdisciplinary Conversations Around Making (Newcastle University, 2019)
  • PhD Our Futures. What Next Career Stories (Newcastle University, 2018)
  • Thresholds Symposium (University of York, 2017)
  • Artists and the City [Chair] Part of a-n's 'Assembly' events (Cobalt Studios, Newcastle, 2017)
  • NICAP work in progress with Dr Ed Wainwright (Newcastle University, 2017)
  • Heritage and Brexit’ (London, March 2017)
  • Cultural Production: Diversity, Equality and Exclusion (Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh 2016)
  • Networks in the Global World (St. Petersburg, Russia 2016)
  • PGR Student Conference [Keynote] (Newcastle University 2016)
  • Exhibition/Non-exhibition: Stretched Out (hosted by Valand Academy at the University of Gothenburg, as part of the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2015)
  • DOUBLE DARE: The Ethos and Practice of DIY Culture [Chair] (BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead 2015)



Teaching

Current teaching

Emma primarily teaches on a variety of postgraduates modules associated with the MA programmes in Curating Art, Museum Studies and Global Heritage Management, including:

  • MCH8611 Contemporary Curating: Ethics, Sites, Histories (module co-leader)
  • MCH8502 Management Practices in Mumeums, Galleries and Heritage Sites (module leader)
  • MCH8503 Understanding Objects, Collections and Stories
  • MCH8551 Curating Art in the Gallery (module co-leader)
  • MCH8599 Research Dissertation 
  • MCH8600 25 Day Placement 


Emma also supervises postgraduate dissertations in Media and Public Relations (MCH8199), undergraduate dissertations in Journalism and Media (MCH3072), Media (3073) and Digital Cultures (3005), and contributes to teaching in the Design Studio for the MA in Urban Design (ARC8115).


PhD Supervision

Emma currently supervises:

  • Fiona Robertson (SACS, Newcastle University) with Prof. Rhiannon Mason
  • Kat Bevan (Northumbria University) with Dr Anna Goulding and Professor Tim Rapley


Emma has supervised the following PhD students to completion:

  • Dr Daniel Goodman (Thesis title: System Gallery: What's the Point?) with David Butler and Dr Paul Richter.


Previous teaching

In the past, Emma led the MA in Art Museum and Gallery Studies, and contributed broadly to teaching across the Art Museum and Gallery, Museum Studies and Heritage Studies MA degree programmes then offered by Media, Culture, Heritage (MCH), including:

  • MCH8501 - Understanding Challenges
  • MCH8504 - Caring for Collections
  • MCH8599 - Research Dissertation 
  • MCH600 - Professional Practice and Research
  • MCH601 - Vocationally Orientated Project
  • MCH8551 - Working on a Project: Art Museum and Gallery Studies (module leader)
  • MCH8502 - Management Practices (module leader)
  • MCH8516 - Museum, Gallery, Heritage Practice (module leader)
  • Art Museum and Gallery Education 1(module leader)
  • Art Museums and Gallery Education 2 (module leader)
  • ICS8005 - Art Curatorship 1: Working with histories, objects and agendas (module co-leader)
  • ICS8006 - Art Curatorship 2: Exhibitions and exhibiting (module co-leader)


Emma supported students to produce the following public exhibitions:

  • The Possibility Of... (Laing Art Gallery, 2016)
  • S[he] (Laing Art Gallery, 2017)
  • Headspace (Laing Art Gallery, 2018)
  • Shifting Styles (The Hatton Gallery, 2020 - cancelled due to COVID-19)


Emma further previously contributed to teaching in Art History (Fine Art), the Showcase OFFSITE module offered by HaSS to creative practice PhD researchers, co-designed the ICCHS MA e-learning course, and the PARTNERS Summer School.


Awards

Emma completed the Newcastle Teaching Award in 2019 and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.



Publications