As part of Common Culture (with David Campbell and Mark Durden), Professor Brown’s research investigates how contemporary social identity is constructed through the rituals of consumption within popular culture. Other areas of Professor Brown’s research explore the human interface with the Invented World and the Natural World and plant/human relations. There is a focus on the mediation of these relationships through popular culture, as a form of communication, and the associated processes of commodification. The use of appropriation, as a methodological tool, and its relation to the history of the ready-made is of particular interest.
Professor Brown has presented work at national and international events including: Unstable Systems, Iceland University of the Arts, Reykjavik, Iceland; ME, The Total Show, Rampa, Porto, Portugal; The Laughable Enigma of the Ordinary, Arquipélago Centro de Artes Contemporaneas, Azores, Portugal; Variable Capital, The Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK; Manifesta 8, The Region of Murcia, Spain; Trying to Cope with Things that Aren’t Human (Part One), David Cunningham Projects, San Francisco, USA; Tales from the Trophy Room Solar, Vila do Conde, Portugal; Bad Faith The Golden Thread, Belfast, UK; Stories of Alienation and Disaster, Die Raum, Berlin, Germany; Not Necessarily in the Right Order, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK; Nothing Happens, Twice: Artists Explore the Absurdity of Life, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, UK; Ships, Clocks and Stars: the Quest for Longitude, National Maritime Museum, London, UK.
Conferences include: Midlands Conference on Critical Thought, University of Warwick, UK; Unstable Systems, Iceland University of the Arts, Reykavik, Iceland; Botany, Trade and Empire, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, UK; Throwing Voices: The Commodification of Culture, From Art Biennials To Celebrity. 8th Annual London Conference in Critical Thought, Goldsmiths; Salon//Plant to Human, Salon Satellite, Berlin, Germany; Plant/Human Picture Berlin, ZK/U Berlin; On Institutional Critique and Humour as Artistic Practice, UAL Central Saint Martins, London, UK.
Academic qualifications
BA (Hons) Fine Art and MA Fine Art
Expertise
I produce video, photographic, sculpture, performance, print, sound, web-based and other interdisciplinary artworks both as an individual artist and as part of the artist’s group, Common Culture. The work is disseminated across a breadth of platforms; through galleries, publications, websites, conferences and screenings or events.
I have experience in working with archives and various external institutions, having recently worked and engaged with Royal Botanic Gardens Kew; National Maritime Museum, London; Los Angeles Maritime Museum and the English Folk Song and Dance Society, London.
I can offer a great deal of experience and knowledge of curatorial practices, having curated a number of exhibitions, including individual projects, co-curated projects and festivals. I have taught and lectured on curating at Staffordshire University, London Metropolitan University and California College of the Arts, San Francisco.
Research interests
I produce artworks both as an individual artist and as part of an artist’s group.
Common Culture
I am part of the collaborative artist’s group, Common Culture, with David Campbell and Mark Durden. The group has taken part in group and solo exhibitions in Europe, Asia and North America.
Through sculptural, photographic, performance and video projects, Common Culture explores how contemporary social identity is constructed through the rituals of consumption within popular culture. Often collaborating with workers from the entertainment industry, we engineer strategic collisions between the elitist assumptions attached to Art and its institutions, and the perceived commonplace and vulgar aspects of popular culture. Previous work has addressed the issue of alienation and exploitation of workers as the logical, but culturally invisible, consequence of commodity consumption. Stand-up comedians, nightclub bouncers, fast-food shopping, tribute singers, discos, television actors and the collective's own status as an exhibiting artist have all been used to explore how venerated and vernacular cultural forms are unequivocally bound up with issues of taste, class and notions of national identity. This body of work was exhibited in group exhibitions in the UK, Ireland, Russia and Portugal, culminating in solo exhibitions at Void, Derry; Solar, Vila de Conde, Portugal and Bad Faith, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast.
In 2010 we were selected for Manifesta 8 – The European Biennial of Contemporary Art in the Region of Murcia, Spain. For Manifesta 8, we produced a narrative project exploring the phenomena of cultural consumption, tourism and the tradition of the historical Grand Tour. This commissioned work, The New El Dorado, narrates an encounter between the specific characteristics of a place and the culture of others. This work resulted in notable reviews in Art Monthly, MAP, CMagazine, Artforum and Frieze, and screenings at conferences held at The Banff Centre, Canada, and Goldsmiths College, London.
Recent research has focused on the attention economy and educational institutions in relation to neoliberalism and marketisation.
Personal practice
As a starting point, my own practice began with investigations into the advancements of technology –testing the progression and optimism associated with these developments against the problems of our everyday usage of them. A range of works were utilised to explore this area including: performative and installation based video works, computer generated photographic prints and web based artworks. A focus was the notion that the commercial drivers for public access to these advancements are often at odds with how we are able to, or wish to, utilise and interact with them. My practice has since expanded to consider the relationship between the invented world and the natural world.
In 2009 I curated a touring exhibition Trying To Cope With Things That Aren’t Human (Part One), which received funding from Arts Council England and the British Council. To the extent that it discussed difference, this exhibition also tried to find the common ground, or indeed the threshold, between our ability to cope with the things that we have created, to make our lives easier, and our struggle to relate to the natural world.
This curatorial project developed and progressed through three exhibitions, which started in San Francisco in January 2009 and ended in London in October 2009, and a publication of newly commissioned artworks by some of the exhibiting artists alongside new works by Paul Rooney and Francis McKee. The exhibitions included existing and newly commissioned works by Ryan Gander, Heather and Ivan Morison, Annika Ström, Marcus Coates, Ian Brown, Alex Pearl, Mariele Neudecker, Richard Hughes, Johanna Hällsten, Richard T. Walker and Alan Currall. The exhibition attracted critical attention and generated reviews in Artforum (critics choice), Art Monthly, A-N and The Guardian.
Grants
- Stories Of Alienation and Disaster – Arts Council England Grants for the Arts.
- Bad Faith – SAFLE
- Trying to Cope with Things that Aren’t Human (Part One)
- Arts Council England Grants for the Arts.
- Trying to Cope with Things that Aren’t Human (Part One)
- British Council Grants To Artists.
Teaching
I teach across all levels of the Fine Art BA (Hons) course and undertake PhD and MA supervision.
Publications
Selected Exhibitions
- 2026 Art of Research, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
- 2025 Unstable Systems, Iceland University of the Arts, as Common Culture
- 2021 ME, The Total Show (solo) Rampa, Porto, Portugal, as Common Culture
- 2020 Radical Ventriloquism: Acts of Speaking for and Through Kelder, London, UK, as
Common Culture
- 2020 OMG I love common culture !!!! ♥♥♥♥ (solo) Die Raum, Berlin, Germany, as Common
Culture
- 2018 The Laughable Enigma of the Ordinary, Arquipélago Centro de Artes Contemporaneas, Azores, Portugal, as Common Culture
- 2017 Public View, Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2016 Common Culture Cabaret (solo), mac, Birmingham, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2016 Double Act: Art and Comedy, The MAC, Belfast, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2016 Double Act: Art and Comedy, The Bluecoat Liverpool, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2016 Nothing Happens, Twice: Artists Explore the Absurdity of Life, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2015 Adventures in Pre-modern Music pt. 22, Strange Cargo, Folkestone, UK
- 2015 Transit, CCA, Glasgow, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2015 Pigdogandmonkeyfestos Exeter Phoenix, Exeter, UK. Curated by Doyle and Mallinson, as Common Culture.
- 2014 Stories of Alienation and Disaster (performance) National Maritime Museum, London.
- 2014 Pigdogandmonkeyfestos AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, UK. Curated by Doyle and Mallinson, as Common Culture.
- 2013 Not Necessarily in the Right Order (solo) New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2013 Techné Hanmi Gallery, London, UK.
- 2013 The Animal Gaze Returned, SIA Gallery, Sheffield, UK.
- 2013 Witnessing the Wilderness, Wimbledon Space, London, UK.
- 2013 Tips For Artists (solo), Goat Major Projects, Cardiff, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2012 Now I Gotta Reason, Jerwood Space, London, UK. Curated by Grizedale Arts and Marcus Coates, as Common Culture.
- 2012 Art:screen Vetlanda Museum, Vetlanda, Sweden.
- 2012 Needle in a Cloud Fold Gallery, London. UK.
- 2012 If You Look Like Your Passport Photo You’re Too Ill To Travel. Sheffield Institute of the Arts Gallery, Sheffield, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2012 Lo and Behold: Public Domain Supermarket 2012, Stockholm, Sweden, as Common Culture.
- 2012 Klang Canteen Elysium Gallery, Swansea, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2011 The Animal Gaze Returned, London Met University, London, UK.
- 2011 Stories of Alienation and Disaster (solo), Die Raum, Berlin, Germany.
- 2011 Endlos Umstritten, Ewig Schön, D21Kunstraum, Leipzig, Germany, as Common Culture.
- 2011 The FACE: evolution of portrait in photography The State Novosibirsk Historical Museum, Novosibirsk, Russia, as Common Culture.
- 2011 Manifesta 8 Flashback, ACAF, Alexandria. Egypt, as Common Culture.
- 2010 Common Culture at Miami Art Fair, Miami, USA, (solo) curated by Sara Black.
- 2010 In View Golden Thread, Belfast, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2010 X-ray presents ENDPOINT, The Perseverance, London. UK.
- 2010 Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain, as Common Culture.
- 2010 Örebro International Videoart Festival, Lindesberg, Sweden.
- 2010 LOOP Festival, Barcelona, Spain.
- 2010 Bad Faith (solo), The Golden Thread, Belfast, UK as Common Culture.
- 2009 Trying to Cope with Things that Aren’t Human (Part One), Cell Project Space, Bethnal Green, London. UK.
- 2009 Tales from the Trophy Room, (solo), Solar, Vila do Conde, Portugal, as Common Culture.
- 2009 Ūdensgabali/Waterpieces, International video and contemporary arts festival, Riga, Latvia.
- 2009 XV International Biennial of Cerveira, Portugal, as Common Culture
- 2009 Covet Plan B, Bristol, UK, as Common Culture.
- 2009 Trying to Cope with Things that Aren’t Human (Part One), AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, UK.
- 2009 Grin & Bear It Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland, as Common Culture.