Dr. Jennifer Crouch is an art-science practitioner working in sculpture, textiles, drawing, installation and painting. They have a background in physics and medical illustration and experience working as an artist in scientific laboratories, on expeditions in the Arctic Circle, with communities, and as part of local and international art projects.
Jennifer has guest lectured at universities across the UK and Europe, teaches textile arts at Morley College London, is fashion lead at NewVic FE College, and is an associate lecturer on the MA in Art and Science at Central Saint Martins, London.
They have published books on popular science and anatomical art.
Jennifer is a queer slug and keen gardener interested in liminality, composting, LBGTQ culture & experiences, textiles, magic and the absurdity of the cosmos.
My PhD research project seeks to utilise artistic processes and practice-based research as a methodology for interacting with matter and physical phenomena while disrupting and investigating scientific research practices.
Through making ‘imaging phantoms’ as a means of interacting with the MRI process, and using a Dobby-loom to deconstruct the mathematical processes behind MRI, the overlaps between the action of physical phenomena on matter, and the sensory, cultural properties of matter are explored.
My thesis develops a new means of engaging with science, focusing on the methodologies of material agency, queer feminist theory and critical posthumanism, resulting in a collection of artefacts that are artistically significant opportunities to use practice-based research to conceptualise scientific processes, institutions, hierarchies and how they exist in the world. The use of public exhibitions and participatory workshops enables further access to this body of work, expanding the means through which scientific knowledge is embodied and exists with Actor-Networks.
My PhD is based at the University of Portsmouth, UK.
Thanks to The Francis Crick Institute, MRI department and CABI, UCL for collaborating with me.
