Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities

Host organisation: Strange Field

Project title: Strange Exchange: Artist/Researcher in Residence

Project description

Strange Exchange is an artist-led library and community learning space in the East End of Glasgow. We share books, publications and other resources related to arts education and learning outside institutional spaces. Our aim is to make the work of arts workers, educators, practitioners more widely accessible and to facilitate the exchange of ideas and practices around creative learning. We treat artist-led and alternative education, facilitation and pedagogy as significant fields and practices with their own methods, ethics, and bodies of knowledge worth preserving, researching and sharing.

We are part of Strange Field, an arts organisation that provides opportunities for creative experimentation, learning, exhibition making and development. We resource and platform artists whose practices push at the boundaries of contemporary art-making, particularly those excluded from or underserved by mainstream arts infrastructure. Through residencies, open calls, and long-term creative development programmes, we build the conditions for genuine experimentation rather than institutionally safe outcomes.

The artist/researcher in residence will be supported to undertake a self-directed project that draws on and develops in conversation with the library, its resources and/or a theme relevant to our work and collection. This could focus on an aspect of artist-run/alternative pedagogy, embodied and process-led learning, community or participatory arts, or anything else that engages the question of what it means to make, work, teach, organise and think as an artist outside institutional frameworks.

Outputs

The outcome of the residency will be shaped in conversation with the artist and in response to their practice. This will be influenced by the researcher’s experience of spending time in the library, getting to know its resources and working alongside our community of artists, educators and visitors. We are open to the form the outcome could take. Some examples might include:

• An artistic/creative or academic response to the collection (via exhibition, publication, etc.)
• Hosting a public event or workshop series
• Running a reading group
• Developing new resources or interpretation for the library
• Contributing to cataloguing, digitisation and other library processes

In person/remote/hybrid

In-person or hybrid.

Primary research/development time spent in-person at the library in the East End of Glasgow, a wheelchair accessible building with access to materials and working space. This can be supplemented with time spent working remotely.

Benefits to the researcher

In dialogue with a significant collection of research materials—many of which cannot be found in traditional library spaces—the researcher will be provided dedicated time, space and resources to develop a sustained and self-directed project with the potential for a significant public outcome. Working with the support of a knowledgeable and experienced team of artists, curators and educators, the researcher will be supported to deepen and expand their practice and to explore new or untested research interests and experiment with ideas in dialogue with Strange Exchange. As part of a collaborative working environment, the resident will work within an organisation that, alongside the library, houses an open access ceramic studio, an archive of The Pipe Factory, and runs a diverse exhibition and events programme. There is the opportunity to learn alongside the Strange Field team via mentorship and peer support and to collaborate and connect with a community of artists, educators, community partners and audiences.

There is also the potential for the researcher to contribute a significant piece of work to the collection or to develop an exhibition within a respected arts organisation that has an established audience. They could increase the reach and scope of their work, develop new relationships and avenues within their practice.

Key relationships

The research intern will work closely with the Strange Exchange team (Coral Brookes and Kiah Endelman Music) and the Strange Field programming team more broadly, all of whom are artists who bring a wide and significant range of experience in arts education, programming, curation and practice. They will also work with and alongside our community of readers, artists and educators, our local East End community and a wide audience who attend Strange Field exhibitions, workshops and other public events. Our audience is diverse due to the varied strands of the project and its connected programmes which includes Forum (an ongoing series of workshops and talks for artists, educators and those interested in the field), Strange Exchange Saturday Sessions (open, drop in process-led workshops for all ages), Murmuration (an artist residency programme with East End communities) and other partnership activity connecting audiences across Glasgow and the UK.

Subject areas

This opportunity would be relevant to the following subject areas:

Creative Writing; Design; Visual Arts; Curating; Museum and Gallery Studies; Conservation of Art and Textiles; Art History; Policy, Arts Management and Creative Industries; Gender and Sexuality; Cultural Studies and Pop Culture; Archives; Library Studies.

Person specification

A1. Knowledge Base

• Essential: Subject Knowledge; Research methods – Practical application; Research methods – theoretical knowledge.

A2. Cognitive Abilities

• Essential: Critical thinking; Problem solving.

A3. Creativity

• Essential: Inquiring minds; Intellectual insight; Intellectual risk.

B1. Personal qualities

• Essential: Enthusiasm; Integrity; Self-reflection.

B2. Self management

• Essential: Commitment to research; Responsiveness to change.

B3. Professional & career development

• Essential: Responsiveness to opportunities.

C2. Research management

• Desirable: Project planning and delivery.

D1. Working with others

• Essential: Team working; Collaboration; Equality and diversity.

D2. Communication & dissemination

• Desirable: Publication.

D3. Engagement & impact

• Desirable: Teaching; Public Engagement.

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First published: 28 September 2026