My PhD project focuses on developments within the cultural field in Moscow from 2012 to 2022. Specifically I examine interrelationships between informal artistic networks (or tusovki) and the growth of oligarch-funded art institutions. The research combines oral histories, art historical and political analysis to explore seemingly paradoxical parallel developments: an expanding experimental cultural field and a shrinking civil society; increasing independent art initiatives, schools and exhibition spaces; state censorship, self-censorship and a conservative turn.
I have presented aspects of this research at conferences, including at the Association of Art Historians, the American and British Societies for East European Studies, and the American Association of Slavic and East European Languages. I have taught undergraduates in the Art History and Arts and Science departments at University College London, the Courtauld Institute, and the British Higher School of Art and Design. I am currently a Higher Education Teaching Fellow and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
