Kathleen Vaughan

Associate professor and graduate program director of Art Education at Concordia University, Kathleen Vaughan is an artist, academic and educator. Using multiple forms of material and visual practices as well as narrative and story, much of Kathleen’s work explores the connections between body, place and feeling, and the theme of ‘home’ and the potential of the artist in the community. Some of her artwork takes the form of mapping and explores walking as a knowledge practice and artist’s method: Nel mezzo del camin uses digital and hand embroidery, textile piecing, video and text to represent the pleasures and political ecology of walking in urban woods and green spaces. Other visual series are figurative and feature life-sized humans: Breathing Under Water comprises digital textile photography and paint to explore metaphors of breathing and notions of beauty. Kathleen is a member of the Textiles and Materiality Research Cluster within Concordia’s Institute for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technology and a core member of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. Her award-winning artwork has been shown in museums, galleries, and artist-run centres in Canada, the Netherlands and Europe.

An innovator in exploring collage as a method of research-creation, Kathleen has published theorizations of her practice in peer-reviewed journals such as the international Journal of Qualitative Methods and edited collections including Smith and Dean’s Practice-led research, research-led practice in the creative arts. She holds a Master’s of Fine Art (Studio Arts) from Concordia University; and a PhD (Education) from York University, Toronto, where her award-winning practice-based dissertation was the first of its kind at the university.

More about Kathleen’s work can be found on her website: www.akaredhanded.com