The British School at Athens

The British School at Athens
Arts Bursary and Residency for Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon PhD Students

The British School at Athens (BSA) and Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon Graduate School embarked on a new joint initiative in 2015/16. An arts residency in Greece, supported by a bursary and with studio and accommodation provided, is offered to practice-based PhD students at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon annually in each of the next three years.

The first BSA Residency has been awarded to Annabel Dover (https://www.annabeldover.com), who will look at Athens through the prism of her own personal narrative. Annabel will engage with the BSA research theme of building the archive and will focus on the question of how to define what should constitute archival material and consider ways of presenting an alternative taxonomy. She will offer an introductory lecture at the School at the start of her residency and host an open studio event while resident. She will also offer a lecture at UAL on returning from the residency.

The offer of a residency to practice-based PhD students furthers the BSA's mission to support UK-based researchers within its broad arts, humanities, and social sciences remit. Research into archives, cultural memory, and landscape and transnational contexts for cultural transmission being carried out at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon, engages well with similar themes identified in the BSA's strategic plan for research.

The BSA, founded in 1886, maintains facilities in Athens which include the Director's house (with meeting rooms and a recently-created artist's studio in the roof space); the Hostel, housing a specialist library, archive, museum, accommodation, a common room, kitchen, dining room, and administration; a Hostel Annexe; the Assistant Director's apartment; and the Marc and Ismene Fitch Laboratory for science-based archaeology. The BSA has a relaxed atmosphere enabling researchers to cross-fertilize among their own different fields of interest, as well as to develop links with local practitioners and researchers.