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Dr Amy Charlesworth

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Lecturer in Art History
  • Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
  • School of Arts & Humanities
  • Art History
  • amy.charlesworth

Professional biography

BA (Hons) Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art, MA History of Art, PhD History of Art (both University of Leeds)

I joined the Open University in January 2015 having previously taught at the University of Leeds, Loughborough University and the University of Bradford. I have also worked for a number of organisations in the arts and culture sector.

Research interests

I work on modern and contemporary art, with a particular focus on the histories and theories of photography, film, and video. Most recently, my research has been focused on debates around critical realism and the possible legacies for this in feminist intervention in filmmaking and distribution in the UK between the 1970s and 1990s. I have previously written on Chantal Akerman for Oxford Art Journal (2017) and on video and social reproduction labour for Third Text (2015).

 

 

Teaching interests

I was Module Chair for our MA in Art History from 2019 to 2023. I also chaired the third-year level module Art of the Twentieth Century.  I am a contributing author to the third-year level A344 Art and its Global Histories and Subject Discipline Lead on our interdisciplinary level one module, A111 Discovering the Arts and Humanities, where I am also an author on the 'Art of Benin' module material.

I would welcome enquiries from students interested in modern and contemporary art history and theory, moving-image art and film history, photography history, and feminist art histories.

Impact and engagement

I have longstanding experience working with artists, filmmakers, programmers and curators and see this collaborative work, like teaching, as central to my academic research. Between 2013-2015 I worked with migrant domestic workers, Leeds Animation Workshop and Pavilion to produce a short film titled The Call Us Maids: A Domestic Workers' Story. The film was shortlisted for the 2016 AHRC Research in Film Awards.  and has been screened at over forty film festivals worldwide. It has been used by the charity, The Voice of Domestic Workers and most recently was included in the screening programme for Women in Revolt! at Tate Britain 2023-2024.

From 2016 - 2018 I was also part of the steering group for Open Arts Objects, short (open access) films with teaching support material dedicated to the objects of art history and the skills of visual analysis.

External collaborations

External Examiner for Fine Art (BA Hons) (Art History), Newcastle University, 2018 - 2021

Academic Reviewer for Leeds City College 2017 - 2019

Publications

On Absence and Saturation in Chantal Akerman's De l’autre côté (From the Other Side) (2017-08-31)
Charlesworth, Amy
Oxford Art Journal, 40(2) (pp. 287-305)

From Representation to the Biopolitical? A Review of Gender, artWork and the global imperative: A materialist feminist critique by Angela Dimitrakaki (2017)
Charlesworth, Amy
Historical Materialism, 25(4) (201 -214)

Voice in Ursual Biemann's Performing the Border (2017)
Charlesworth, Amy
Dissect(3) (pp. 277-291)

The 1970s and Today (2016-03-03)
Charlesworth, Amy
Oxford Art Journal, 39(1) (pp. 147-152)

Caught Between the Factory and the Home: Re-Visiting Feminist ‘Documentary’ Aesthetics under Globalised Capital (2015-07-13)
Charlesworth, Amy
Third Text, 29(1-2) (pp. 88-103)

Navigating spheres, shifts in emphasis: The documentary, the video essay and the social (2014-12-01)
Charlesworth, Amy
Art & the Public Sphere, 3(1) (pp. 31-44)

'Whose Housework, Whose Artwork? The Voice of Domestic Workers’ (2020-03-08)
Charlesworth, Amy and Begonia, Marissa
In: Deepwell, Katy ed. Feminist Art Activisms And Artivisms. Plural
ISBN : 9789492095725 | Publisher : Valiz | Published : Amsterdam