Introduction
Swansea College of Art at UWTSD has a number of high-profile Professors of Practice. Each of our practice-based professors works with the University to bring their professional experience to benefit our students.
Sir Peter Blake
Sir Peter Blake’s contribution to British Pop Art is unparalleled: he is particularly well known for his use of collages and assemblages. His work is inspired by his love affair with icons and the ephemera of popular contemporary culture, including posters of film and music stars, badges, photographs, advertising and postcards.
He has worked with famous bands and rock stars, producing seminal cover art for music albums including The Beatles, Paul Weller, Band Aid and The Who. He continues to work prolifically from his studio in west London, maintaining his reputation and popularity.
UWTSD’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Medwin Hughes, DL said: “I’m delighted to appoint Sir Peter as a Professor of Practice at the University, Sir Peter joins a number of exceptional individuals who are working with the university to bring their unique and professional expertise to benefit our students.
“The role of Professors of Practice is relatively new to the University and allows us to work with partners with specific expertise related to our strategic aims who sometimes do not come through the traditional academic route. Through their involvement in our provision we can enhance the access to a range of defined skills to support academic delivery and build upon our rapidly improving reputation for delivering graduate skills in the context of employability, sustainability and work-related education and training.”
J Spencer Davies
Jenni was born in St Clears, brought up in Port Talbot, and studied at Cardiff University, Manchester University, Trinity College Dublin and currently Swansea University.
Biographical Summary
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery (1999–2018) Swansea
Jenni Spencer-Davies is an experienced art gallery curator, whose role was transformational in redeveloping Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea, when Gallery Curator. With a focus on bringing this much-loved city art gallery into the 21st century, the project sensitively conserved and developed the original 1911 Grade II* listed building to meet the gallery’s needs today, successfully introducing full access to facilitate participation and engagement for our local communities.
The future vision for the redeveloped gallery includes dynamic programmes of contemporary exhibitions, collection displays and learning programmes, working creatively with art and artists in a local, national and international context.
Glynn Vivian is a flagship gallery for the city of Swansea, presenting projects by artists working internationally, whilst promoting artists from Wales. The £9 million project was supported by the City and County of Swansea, Arts Council Wales, Welsh Government, CADW and the Heritage Lottery Fund. Glynn Vivian is a Plus Tate partner and an MLA accredited museum.
Oriel Gallery (1989–1998) Cardiff
Prior to working at the Glynn Vivian, Jenni was Head of Gallery at Oriel, the Arts Council of Wales Gallery in Cardiff, where she led the creative programmes, curating exhibitions with established and emerging Welsh artists such as David Nash, Terry Setch, Keith Arnatt and Helen Sear, and presenting national and international artists such as Albert Irvin, Hannah Collins, Bill Viola, Kazuo Katase and Louise Bourgeois.
The Douglas Hyde Gallery (1980–1987) Dublin
In the 1980s, following a period at the National Gallery of Ireland, Jenni began her curatorial career as Exhibitions Organiser at the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Trinity College Dublin, then the leading gallery in Ireland for national and international exhibitions, working with Edward Kienholz, Joan Miro, Camille Souter, James Coleman, Brian Eno and A.R.Penck, amongst others. During this period, she also taught part-time for the BA Art History degree course for continuing education at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin, and in 1982 established the first Arts Administration course in Ireland, now under the auspices of University College Dublin.
Karen MacKinnon
MacKinnon, made an MBE in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday honours, has been working as an international curator based in Wales for the past sixteen years, including roles at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea and Chapter, Cardiff.
During that time she has organised and curated contemporary and historical exhibitions and has developed a specific interest in the relationships between local and global, place and locality. More recently, she has been working in a number of different contexts both on and off site, working with socially engaged practitioners as well as those whose work is gallery based.
In 2005 she curated the exhibition Somewhere Else Wales at the Venice Biennale which included the work of Peter Finnemore, Laura Ford, Paul Granjon and a residency with Bedwyr Williams. In 2008 she co-curated with Maria Clara Bernal the exhibition Displaced: contemporary art from Colombia which showed the work of 15 artists including artists such as Oscar Munoz, Jose Alejandro Restrepo and Maria Elvira Escalon.
Mal Pope
Mal Pope was born in Brynhyfryd, Swansea. Following a performance on a BBC Radio show as a teenager, Professor Pope was signed to Elton John’s Rocket Record Company and would work alongside him for the next six years.
Professor Pope studied at Christ’s College Cambridge where he graduated with a degree in Land Economy. He has written songs for Cliff Richard and The Hollies, duetted with Elton John and Bonnie Tyler, toured with Art Garfunkel and Belinda Carlisle and produced records for Aled Jones.
As a broadcaster, Professor Pope has presented shows on all of the BBC Network stations and hosted the BAFTA award-winning music programme ‘The Mal Pope Show’ for ITV Wales. His documentary about the roots of Black Gospel Music, ‘Heaven’s Sound’, won a major prize at the New York Television Awards.
In 2005 his Musical ‘Amazing Grace’ was featured in the Cardiff International Festival of Musical Theatre and at the Wales Millennium Centre a year later. Professor Pope’s next musical, ‘Contender’ based on the life of the boxer Tommy Farr, opened in Spring 2007 and stared West End stars Mike Doyle as Tommy and Peter Karrie as Joby Churchill.
In 2009 Mal set up the ‘Grand Slam Theatre Company’ to produce his latest musical ‘Cappuccino Girls’. The show toured across the UK before setting up a 24-week residency in the purpose-built ‘South Wales Evening Post Theatre’ on Swansea’s High Street becoming the longest-running musical outside of the West End.
In 2012 Mal set up YJB Films and his first Feature Documentary Film ‘Jack to a King’ was premiered at the Empire Leicester Square, London in September 2014, receiving 3 Bafta Cymru Awards a year later.
Marc Rees
Born and living in Wales, Marc Rees is an interdisciplinary creative with an established track record of delivering ground-breaking, provocative and risk-taking projects. For the last fifteen years he has developed a number of more architecture-driven artworks; notably the location specific projects En Residencia and For Mountain, Sand & Sea, commissioned by Teatro de la Laboral and National Theatre Wales respectively.
Adain Avion was Professor Rees’ most ambitious project to date, selected as Wales’ flagship project for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and London Festival 2012. His work Tir Sir Gâr, made in collaboration with writer Roger Williams for Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru was the most nominated production in the Theatre Critics of Wales Awards 2014, with five nominations.
In 2014 Professor Rees created a re-imagining of the world of Dylan Thomas’ much celebrated Under Milk Wood, entitled Raw Material: Llareggub Revisited for National Theatre Wales and BBC Wales that incorporated the whole of the township of Laugharne as part of the DT100 Festival. He is also the founder and curator of LLAWN (Llandudno Arts Weekend) an annual festival that celebrates the North Wales seaside town’s Victorian heritage.
In 2015, he united Wales’ two national companies Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru and National Theatre Wales (along with S4C) for the very first time with a site-specific, multi-platform event that commemorated the 150th anniversary of the founding of Y Wladfa, the Welsh colony in Patagonia, Argentina. In May 2016, Professor Rees presented a brand new site-specific work entitled Digging for Shakespeare commissioned as part of the 50th anniversary of Brighton Festival curated by Laurie Anderson.
Edward Thomas
Born in Swansea, South Wales, Edward had a keen interest in art and the theatre from an early age and in his teenage years he became a member of The West Glamorgan Youth Theatre.
He completed a foundation course with a distinction in Art at Swansea College of Art in 1989 and went on to graduate from Wimbledon School of Art with a First Class BA (Hons) degree in three Dimensional Theatre Design in 1992. His career in theatre began at the Royal Opera House as Assistant Designer on the production of ‘Turandot’.
Edward was involved in various commercials before breaking into films. His first film experience was on the period feature – ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’, an adaptation of Charles Dickens unfinished detective story. With his new found passion for film Edward completed a further 12 feature films over a 6 year period, including historical, Sci-Fi and fantasy genres. Mostly shot in South Africa, he gained extensive experience and expanded his reputation as a production designer.
On his return to Wales, he fulfilled his dream to work at home with Russell T Davies on ‘Doctor Who’ (Series 1–5) and the spin off series ‘Torchwood’ (Series 1–3), The ‘Sarah Jane Adventures’ and the pilot for ‘Sherlock’ for the BBC. His reputation for creating new worlds took him back to South Africa in 2010 to work with Kudos on a British television science-fiction drama serial called ‘Outcasts’. He went on to work with World Productions on ‘United’ which explored the story of the Munich air disaster and then the BBC2 critically acclaimed police drama ‘Line of Duty’.
In 2012 Edward was instrumental in bringing Hollywood to his home city of Swansea with the historical fantasy drama series ‘Da Vinci’s Demons’ created by David Goyer for Starz TV. He assisted in setting up Swansea’s Bay studios and was co-producer and designer on seasons 1 to 3. His next project was ‘Set fire to the Stars’ the Dylan Thomas biopic starring Elijah Wood. He also exec produced the documentary feature film ‘Jack to a King the Swansea Story.’ In 2014 Edward was nominated for no less than 18 BAFTA Cymru nominations for his role in the fore mentioned productions.
Edward consulted on the design of the ‘BadWolf’ studio in Cardiff and it was not long before Africa was calling again. He returned to work on several projects including, ‘Resident Evil – The Final Chapter’ with highly acclaimed director Paul W S Anderson on ‘The Escape Room’ for Sony pictures with Adam Robitel and producer Neal Moritz and YouTube Originals latest Sci-Fi thriller Series ‘Origin’.
Edward has received much recognition for his work: BAFTA Cymru and RTS Award nominations for Best Design and a National BAFTA nomination for Break-through Talent. In 2006, he won a BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Design for his work on ‘Torchwood’, and in 2010 Best Design for ‘Doctor Who – Waters of Mars’. In 2015 Edward won the BAFTA Cymru award for best design for his work on ‘Set Fire to the Stars’. He also won the Arts and Culture Category of the IWA Inspire Wales Awards and won the top vote for the 2015 WalesOnline Arts Power List.
Edward has always been a great supporter of emerging talent and is a director of the training scheme ‘Its My Shout’. He is Vice President and a Fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and a Fellow of the University of Wales Trinity St David. In 2019 Edward was made a professor of practice. When he is not creating other worlds around the world he resides in Swansea with his wife Nathalie and his daughters Nell and Macy.
Roger Williams
Roger Williams is an award-winning writer and producer working in both the Welsh and English languages. His drama series BANG won the Bafta Cymru Award and Celtic Media Festival Award for best drama series in 2018, and he was nominated for a Writers’ Guild of Great Britain award for his work on the show.
He wrote and produced the feature film – THE FEAST – which premiered at SXSW in 2021 and has won awards at the BiFAN, Motel X and Neuchatel film festivals. It was released in North America in 2021 and in the UK in 2022.
Roger has won the BAFTA Cymru screenwriting award twice for TIR (2015) and CAERDYDD (2010). He has written dramas for BBC, Channel 4 and S4C.
Roger is the CEO and Founder of production company JOIO and was the Chair of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain 2012-2015. He is a graduate from the University of Warwick where he studied Comparative Literature (1992–95).
John Wood
John Wood is Emeritus Professor of Design at the Goldsmiths University of London. In his student days, in the mid–1960s, he attended Manchester Art School, now called Manchester Metropolitan University.
During his Fine Art studies, he built interactive electronic installations and sound toys. After graduating with first-class honours, he worked for a further two years at their Institute of Advanced Studies, creating his ‘Machine for Saying Sorry’ and a computer-assisted play with 27 characters (‘King of Shouting House’), which was performed at London’s ICA.
By this time, he had acquired a strong concern for environmental matters and had invented several solar energy devices, which drew some press attention. In 1975 he became a founder-member of the 1970s cult band Deaf School, which went on to win the national Melody Maker Rock and to secure a USA record deal with Warner Brothers. John continues to record, write and perform on stage in the guise of his alter ego ‘The Reverend Max Ripple’.
Professor Wood has taught Fine Art at a number of universities in the UK and Asia, although mostly at Goldsmiths, the University of London, where he served as Deputy Head of Fine Art, from 1978–1988, when the main YBA cohort was gathering. After this time he wrote and launched several radical design degrees which subsequently formed the basis for the current Department of Design.
In collaboration with Dr Julia Lockheart, Professor Wood co-edits the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice (Intellect). Since the mid-1970s he has written several books and many book chapters, articles, papers and given keynote talks, most of which reflect on the role of designers in confronting environmental crises, such as global warming and biodiversity losses. His (AHRC and EPSRC funded) research findings on metadesign can be accessed via the Metadesigners website.