Vanessa Marr

Vanessa Marr BA (hons) RSA PGCE QTLS MCSD MA PhD Candidate. 

Vanessa is a principal lecturer, artist and designer based in East Sussex. She has taught art and design for the past decade and is currently Course Leader at the University of Brighton for their successful BA (hons) Design for Digital Media course, also teaching into BA Animation and BA Games Art & Design.  She has extensive design experience including working as an Art Editor for the book publishers Dorling Kindersley in London, as well as running her own design agency for 10 years.

Her academic work takes a critical view of the hidden language of objects and fairy tales, which she explores primarily through embroidery and creative writing. Her work is underpinned by visual design-theory and process, yet embraces an intuitive and physical approach that facilitates self-authorship and her continuing exploration of narrative and sequence. She is currently studying for a PhD exploring alternative practices of autoethnography through phenomenological engagement with a dusting cloth through stitch, which she defines as drawing with thread.

She is particularly interested in the domestic and feminine origins of fairy tales and the opportunity that these narratives hold to reflect the lives of modern women. Her ongoing practice-based collaborative arts project ‘Women & Domesticity – What’s your Perspective?’ references traditional ‘women’s work’ and invites people to embroider their own perspectives and experiences of domesticity onto a duster. The growing collection includes over 100 contributions. It has been exhibited and presented widely in academic, community and arts contexts. She is also a member of a number of academic research and creative arts groups. For more information on this project or to join her ongoing call for contributions please visit https://domesticdusters.wordpress.com/  or https://www.instagram.com/domesticdusters/

Vanessa regularly participates in collaborative and creative projects and is a member of the the UnFold textile group. She never stops learning, making and writing.

Find out more about Vanessa’s research:
https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/vanessa-marr