I am an art historian specialising in queerness and contemporary art in transnational and global contexts. My principle interests lie in researching, writing, and teaching about queer, feminist, and anti-colonial practices of science fiction which critically reorient our relationship to ourselves, our bodies, and each other — including the more-than-human world of bacteria, microplastics, and viruses.
I have explored these topics in a range of publications, from peer-reviewed articles on queer ecologies and apocalypticism in South Korean contemporary art to creative non-fiction on voice and breath in Derek Jarman’s film ‘Blue’. They also informed my PhD thesis, a collaborative project between The Courtauld and Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational which focused on work by artists with East/Southeast Asian heritage, completed in 2023 under the supervision of Wenny Teo and Sook-Kyung Lee. Subsequently I was a postdoctoral research fellow at UAL’s Decolonising Arts Institute on the project Transforming Collections: Reimagining Art, Nation, and Heritage, where I focused on British public art collections’ acquisition and display of work by queer and racialised artists with a particular interest in science, esotericism, and the occult.
I am an experienced programmer and facilitator and have organised public events on a range of topics including grief, queer ecologies, contagion, abolitionism, and trans aesthetics. Having attended a state comprehensive school, I feel particularly strongly about engaging wider publics in art. I am open to future project contributions, writing and speaking opportunities, event organisation and facilitation, and other collaborations. I can be reached at andrew.cummings@courtauld.ac.uk.
Education
- PhD History of Art. Thesis: ‘Alien: Queerness, Globalisation, and Contemporary “Asian” Art, 2013–2023’. AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership ‘New Media Art Histories in Asia’, The Courtauld Institute of Art & Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational (2017–2023)
- MA Anthropology of Media, SOAS, University of London (2015–2016)
- BA Modern Languages, University of Oxford (2008–2012)
Research Interests
- Contemporary art and visual culture
- Queerness
- Ecology
- The dynamics of gender, desire, race, and class
- Disease and contagion
- Horror, fantasy, and science fiction
- Speculative futures, utopia, and the apocalypse
Publications
Peer-reviewed articles and chapters
- ‘The Promise of Parasites: Queer Currents, Currencies of Queerness, and Dew Kim’s Latrinxia: A New Utopia‘, immediations, no. 18 (2021)
- ‘Apocalypse, Now! Dew Kim’s Succulent Humans‘, in Edwin Coomasaru and Theresa Deichert (eds), Imagining the Apocalypse: Art and the End Times, Courtauld Books Online (2021)
Art criticism and reviews
- ‘Sex/Gender/Work: Samak Kosem’s Chiang Mai Ethnography’, The Courtauld Gender & Sexuality Research Group blog (September 2020)
- Review of ‘The Networks of Nam June Paik’, Hyundai Tate Research Centre (January 2020)
- Review of ‘Chinternet Ugly’ at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, immediations, vol. 4, no. 4 (2019)
- Review of ‘Art Time, Life Time: Tehching Hsieh’, Tate Research (July 2018)
Conferences and Workshops
- ‘Arts of Public Grieving’, invited lecture (Goldsmiths, University of London), May 2024
- ‘“Decorative”, “Delicate”, and “Restrained”: Work by East/Southeast Asian heritage
artists in UK public collections’, Transforming Collections partners workshop, Tate, November 2023
- ‘Lost and Found? Hamad Butt at Tate’, Transforming Collections workshop, UAL, November 2022
- ‘The Promise of Parasites: Dew Kim’s Latrinxia: A New Utopia’, Third Year PhD Symposium (The Courtauld Institute of Art), October 2020
- ‘Apocalypse, Now! Dew Kim’s Succulent Humans’, Imagining the Apocalypse (The Courtauld Institute of Art), October 2019
- ‘Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Fireworks (archives) and the “Asian Gothic”’, Dimensions of the Modern: Exploring Critical Approaches (The Courtauld Institute of Art), June 2019
Teaching
- Spring 2025: Associate Lecturer, Body, Space and Power in Contemporary Chinese Art and Visual Cultures (BA)
- Autumn 2021–Spring 2022: Associate Lecturer, Lessons in Critical Interpretation (BA)
- Summer 2020: Art History Summer University (introduction to Art History for Year 12 students)
- Spring 2020: Guest Lecturer, Global China (MA)
- Summer 2019: Teaching Assistant, Foundations – Modern and Contemporary Art (BA)
- Autumn 2018 & 2019: Teaching Assistant, Core Methodologies (MA)
Awards
- Huayu Enrichment Scholarship, Taiwan Ministry of Education (July–August 2019)
Other Activities
- Convenor, ‘Viral Images: Art and Contagion’, Association for Art History conference, April 2022, with Sophie Guo
- Chair, ‘Digital Dystopias’ (panel), Imagining the Apocalypse (The Courtauld Institute of Art), October 2019
- Organiser, Queer Conversations: Looking to Art History and Visual Culture, Modern & Contemporary Postgraduate Colloquium (The Courtauld Institute of Art), March 2019, with Tilly Scantlebury
- Oral history interviewer & documentary filmmaker, Rainbow Pilgrims (LGBTQI migrants in Britain), 2016–2018