Laura Denning

Dr Laura Denning

Overview

Profile summary

Dr. Laura Denning is an artist, writer and academic. Her art practice is transdisciplinary, working across film, sound, social participation, curation and installation, often using mark-making (including photography) and walking as experimental methodologies.

Laura’s practice-led research positions art practice within experimental geography, to foreground its environmental and ecological focus. Recipient of a number of awards from Arts Council England and others, Laura is currently working on a British Academy funded project, A Feminist Almanac of the Weather, a 2-year exploration of living with the weather as a lens through which to understand kinship. Ductus/A Braille Bestiary – a sound work and artists’ publication, was commissioned by the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity (York University) in 2022, and is now held in the Borthwick Archives. Her films have been screened internationally, including Oxidental Bodies at SoundFjord // Nomadic Sonic Art Gallery & Research Unit at Café OTO, London, as part of Aural Diversities/Encounters (April 2023), as well as in Korea, The Netherlands, USA and Turkey. Laura recently set up A Sometimes Project, an experimental international arts agency that creates opportunities for artists and audiences, in different media and at different locations. Previously she was the Founder of Cine Sisters SW CIC, an Arts Council England funded collective whose vision has been to develop a diverse and inclusive network which supports and inspires women and gender-minority moving image artists and filmmakers in the south west region. She was also a founding member of Sprite Arts, an artists’ led initiative funded by Plymouth Culture.

Laura has presented at many international conferences, and is currently co-organising Island narratives of kinship, place, and the weather with the University of the Highlands and Islands for Spring 2025. She has also written for a number of publications, most recently with a chapter in Rethinking Creativity in the Era of Ecocide. Embodiment, Performance and Practice (Bloomsbury 2023). She has also contributed chapters to a Special Issue of Geohumanities (Official Journal of the Association of American Geographers 2021), Monsoon Waters – University of Westminster (2019) and Imagining Islands: Visual Culture in the Northern British Archipelago co-authored with Prof. Owain Jones (Routledge 2018). Her creative practice is featured in Culture, Community, Climate (art.earth 2020), Yatoo GNAP publications (Korea) Water 2016; Wind 2018, and Ephemeral River (art.earth GNAP 2018).

 

Teaching interests

Associate Lecturer - BA (Hons) Creative Media. Contributing to modules: Situated Practice, Experiment, Critical Dialogues, Independent Practice, Dissertation.

My teaching interests are ultimately student focused, aiming to support students to find their own creative voice and to underpin their enquiries with robust scholarly research. I particularly encourage experimentation and attention to sound within creative media, alongside intelligent appeoaches to research and contextualisation. 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 4 - Quality Education
  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
  • SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
  • SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
  • SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production
  • SDG 14 - Life Below Water
  • SDG 15 - Life on Land
  • SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals