Laura Robertson
// Education
2018-2020: MA Writing, School of Arts &
Humanities, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2005-2008: BA (Hons) Visual Arts (FIRST CLASS),
School of Arts & Media, University of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK
// Selected Experience
Oct 2016-Present: Lecturer, BA (Hons) Fine
Art, School of Arts & Media, University of Salford, Greater Manchester
2018: Critical Writer-in-Residence, Open Eye
Gallery, Liverpool
Dec 2018-Present: Contributing Editor, The
Double Negative Online Magazine, Liverpool
Apr 2016-May 2019: Board Trustee, The Royal
Standard Gallery & Studios, Liverpool
Jan 2016-May 2017: Board Trustee, Artist
Teacher Associates, Liverpool
Dec 2011-Dec 2018: Editor, Co-founder, The
Double Negative Online Magazine, Liverpool
Dec 2011-Present: Freelance writer and editor
Feb 2010-Dec 2011: Co-Director, Chair, The
Royal Standard Gallery & Studios, Liverpool
2010-Present: Guest Lecturer for further and
higher education: Liverpool John Moores University, Manchester Metropolitan
University, University of Reading, University of Salford, Wirral Metropolitan
College and more
2010-Present: Delivering workshops, talks and
panel discussions for cultural organisations a-n, Art For Hull, The Bluecoat,
Castlefield Gallery, Contemporary Visual Arts Network North-West, Finnish Art
Agency, Liverpool Biennial, Mark Devereux Projects, Storyhouse and more
// Selected Books
2019: Attention Anthology (paperback, 95
pages), Royal College of Art, ISBN 9781910642450 (co-editor, contributor)
2019: NOIT 5 – bodies as in buildings (paperback,
pages), Royal College of Art/Flat Time House (co-editor, contributor)
2019: Present Tense: A decade since Liverpool
EU Capital of Culture… What now? (paperback, 96 pages), The Double Negative,
ISBN 9781527242814 (co-editor, contributor)
2016: On Being Curious: New Critical Writing
on Contemporary Art From the North-West of England (paperback, 68 pages), The
Double Negative, ISBN 9781526202376 (editor)
2012: The Designist: Liverpool's Must-see for
the Design Obsessed (paperback, 64 pages with fold-out map), Smiling Wolf
Press, ISBN 9780956099921 (co-editor, writer)
// Selected Work in Broadcast, Print &
Online
July 2020: Letter From Helsinki (feature), Art
Monthly, London (PRINT)
Jan 2020: a woman's work is never done (catalogue essay), Let’s Get Stuck In Traffic! Marie
Jones, Kochi Kochi, release date TBC Jan 2020: On Bodies: Cézanne’s Crouching Venus
(feature), The Fourdrinier, Manchester (ONLINE)
Nov 2019: _you feel me , FACT (review), Art
Monthly, London (PRINT)
Nov 2019: Art B&B Blackpool (review), BBC
Radio 4 Front Row (BROADCAST)
Oct 2019: Real Work , FACT (review), Art
Monthly, London (PRINT)
Sept 2019: British Ceramics Biennial (review),
BBC Radio 4 Front Row (BROADCAST)
Aug 2019: Binding Social Fibres: Public – You
& Me (feature), AirSpace Gallery/The Double Negative (ONLINE)
Feb 2019: “An artwork’s a key that could
unlock you-don’t-know-what.” The Big Interview: Tim Etchell s, The Double
Negative (ONLINE)
Feb 2019: A Desire To Be Seen and To Be Loved:
Ren Hang , The Double Negative (ONLINE)
Dec 2018: Ren Hang (review), BBC Radio 4 Front
Row (BROADCAST)
Nov 2018: Fernand Léger (review), BBC Radio 4
Front Row (BROADCAST)
Nov 2018: I Just Want to Lie Down (feature),
Open Eye Gallery/TILT (PRINT/ONLINE)
Aug 2018: Field Trip: “Sweetness overlaying
toxicity” — Istanbul, Turkey , The Double Negative (ONLINE)
Aug 2018: Shouldn't Throw Stones - The view of
a Night Watchman (catalogue essay and interview), ISBN 9781789260823
(PRINT/EXHIBITION)
Jul 2018: The Big Interview: Agnès Varda //
Liverpool Biennial 2018 , The Double Negative (ONLINE)
Apr 2018: Teresa Eng's Instagram (feature),
Open Eye Gallery/TILT (PRINT/ONLINE)
Apr 2018: Volkan Aslan Charts Istanbul’s
Political Turmoil (feature), Elephant, London (ONLINE)
// Selected Exhibitions
Jul 2018-Feb 2019: Six Memos (exhibitor),
curated by Branka Bencic, touring Sala Municipal de Exposiciones deL Museo de
la Pasión, Valladolid, Spain, Galeria Labyrint, Lublin, Poland and St Georges
Hall, Liverpool, UK
Jun-Jul 2015: LIV-BCN Festival (curator), with
John Wai (UK) and Mariadiamantes (Spain) Bau University, Barcelona, Spain and the
Exhibition Research Centre, Liverpool John Moores University, UK
Jun-Aug 2012: The Spectacle of the Lost
(curator), exhibiting John James Audubon (USA) and Birds' Ear View Collective
(UK, USA), Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool, UK
Sept-Oct 2010: Hierarchies of Allegiance
(co-curator), exhibiting Jonathan Baldock, Christian Newby and Pil and Galia
Kollectiv (UK), The Royal Standard, Liverpool, UK May
2010: No Soul For Sale (co-curator), 10th anniversary celebrations, Tate
Modern, London, UK
Degree Details
School of Arts & Humanities
I’m a writer, art critic and editor from Liverpool, UK. I've written critically about art – through dream archipelagos, RPG, belly rolls, desire, depression, imaginary museums, robot orchestras, abandoned factories, glow-in-the-dark skateparks and more, more – for a variety of print and online publications since 2011.
International magazines, including Art Monthly, a-n, ArtReview, Elephant, frieze and Hyperallergic, have published my interviews, features and reviews since 2014, and I’ve talked about art on BBC Radio 4 Front Row as a guest critic since 2018.
I work with other writers and editors, artists, galleries, colleges, universities and communities to explore arts writing as a creative practice. I co-founded The Double Negative online magazine in 2011, and have been commissioning and platforming Northern people, projects and places ever since – including under-represented and early-career culture writers.
I’m currently writing my first novel, Alive~Asleep: A Horror Memoir – the first few chapters of which I’ve submitted for my MA Writing Final Major Project, and an exerpt can be read here. Part memoir, part eulogy, the sleep-deprived texts within Alive~Asleep hover around two central characters, the unreliable narrator and her cancer-stricken father; the former looking to art and culture in order to get a grip on their grief. We traverse sleeplessness as a territory that holds many fragments of horror – swooping towards empty spaces, holes and portals, nightscapes, dreamscapes, ghosts, the supernatural, the monstrous and the grotesque, illness, stasis, metamorphosis, the uncanny and the eerie, doubt, truth, fiction, and sculpture, painting and sound from female artists Berlinde De Bruyckere, Dora García and Helene Schjerfbeck – stories that ebb and flow between delirium and lucidity.
Image credit: Luminous Dreams, Gabriel Figueroa Centenary pamphlet, (front cover, cropped), Cornerhouse, Manchester, October-December 2007
Alive~Asleep
Alive~Asleep
Alive~Asleep
Alive~Asleep
Alive~Asleep
Alive~Asleep
Alive~Asleep
Alive~Asleep: A Horror Memoir © Laura Robertson, 2020. Excerpt.
Reading time: 8 minutes.
Part memoir, part eulogy, the sleep-deprived texts within Alive~Asleep hover around two central characters, the unreliable narrator and her cancer-stricken father; the former looking to art and culture in order to get a grip on their grief. We traverse sleeplessness as a territory that holds many fragments of horror – swooping towards empty spaces, holes and portals, nightscapes, dreamscapes, ghosts, the supernatural, the monstrous and the grotesque, illness, stasis, metamorphosis, the uncanny and the eerie, doubt, truth, fiction, and sculpture, painting and sound from female artists Berlinde De Bruyckere, Dora García and Helene Schjerfbeck – stories that ebb and flow between delirium and lucidity.
Alive~Asleep: A Horror Memoir © Laura Robertson, 2020. Excerpt.
Medium:
Alive~Asleep: A Horror Memoir © Laura Robertson, 2020. Excerpt.Size:
Reading time: 8 minutes.
Giving Yourself Away
Giving Yourself Away
Giving Yourself Away
Giving Yourself Away
Image credits: Mersey Wylie, Giving Myself Away (Official Video), dir. Sam Wiehl, director of photography Marco Franton, costume design by Sam Wiehl and Alena Kundera, filmed at Hinterlands, Liverpool, 2018. Courtesy of Mersey Wylie.
Image credits: Mersey Wylie, Giving Myself Away (Official Video), dir. Sam Wiehl, director of photography Marco Franton, costume design by Sam Wiehl and Alena Kundera, filmed at Hinterlands, Liverpool, 2018. Courtesy of Mersey Wylie.
Giving Yourself Away
Giving Yourself Away
Publication image: Hannah Archambault.
Publication image credit: Hannah Archambault.
Publication image credit: Hannah Archambault.
Reading Time: 10 minutes.
A short story not about an Ikea desk. Developed from The Collaborative Project Brief by Emily LaBarge.
Excerpted from the brief: ‘Contribute to a creative journal published by Flat Time House. Comprising new writing and visual contributions, NOIT — 5: bodies as in buildings explores what happens when the domestic, the home, and the body are alienated from their most basic associations and given new ones.’
NOIT — 5 bodies as in buildings was produced collaboratively by students from the MA Writing Programme at the Royal College of Art.
ISBN 978-1-910642-42-9
Published by Flat Time House
Publication Editors: George Lynch and Yin Ying Kong
Editors: Laura Robertson, Vivian Yuan Xiao, Bertie Wnek, James Ireland, Hattie Gibson, Bryony Bodimeade
Copy Editors: Emily LaBarge and Brian Dillon
Project Manager: Harriet Welch
Designed by Emily Schofield
Design Liaison Team: Harriet Welch, Yin Ying Kong, Hattie Gibson, Annie May Demozay, Nina Hanz, Lydia Hounat, Ludovica Colacino, Philippine Hamen
Printed by DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg GmbH
Image credits: Mersey Wylie, Giving Myself Away (Official Video), dir. Sam Wiehl, director of photography Marco Franton, costume design by Sam Wiehl and Alena Kundera, filmed at Hinterlands, Liverpool, 2018. Courtesy of Mersey Wylie.
Publication images credit: Hannah Archambault.
Giving Yourself Away © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.
Medium:
Giving Yourself Away © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.Size:
Reading Time: 10 minutesIn Collaboration with:
Monodonmonoceros
Monodonmonoceros
Monodonmonoceros
Monodonmonoceros © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.
Reading time: 2 minutes.
A short story written in situation at the large mammals gallery, Natural History Museum, London. Developed from a Writing Situation Brief by Sally O’Reilly.
Excerpted from the brief: ‘Choose a location you are interested in, and in which you will be able to spend some time perceiving, thinking and writing. Try to think of this location that you are in not simply as a space, but as a dynamic situation.’
Monodonmonoceros © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.
Medium:
Monodonmonoceros © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.Size:
Reading time: 2 minutes
The Grid
The Grid
The Grid
The Grid
The Grid
The Grid
The Grid
The Grid
The Grid © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.
Image credit: Ludovica Colacino.
Image credit: Ludovica Colacino.
Reading time: 8 minutes.
A short scifi story that pays careful attention to Larry Achiampong & David Blandy’s 2019 exhibition, The Grid, at Copperfield Gallery, London.
Published in Attention: an anthology of student writing developed from a Royal College of Art MA Writing workshop on attention, scale, duration, and endurance delivered by Brian Dillon.
Excerpted from the brief: ‘The task here is to consider the forms of attention or concentration that inform critical (and other kinds of) writing—these may include the duration of looking or experiencing a work of art, place, object, or state; the spatial delimiting of your topic (a place, a room, a detail); the organisation of material by hierarchy or stratification or narrative movement. Among the narrative clichés often levelled at critics is one that says they have not paid enough “attention” to the work at hand... What is, or could be, the duration, extent, and degree of proper attention? We will think about the degree or kind of attention that our writing demands of the reader, and the techniques adopted to persuade a reader that an object or experience is worthy of attention’.
Attention was produced collaboratively by students from the MA Writing Programme at the Royal College of Art.
ISBN: 978-1-910642-45-0
Published by: RCA
Publication Editors: Yin Ying Kong, Rose Higham-Stainton, Bryony Bodimeade
Editors: Laura Robertson, Judith Hagan, Nina Hanz Copy
Editors: George Lynch, Esme Boggis, Fiona Glen
Design Liaison: George Leith
Designed by: Alec McWilliam
Printed by: Tallinn Book Printers.
The Grid © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.
Medium:
The Grid © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.Size:
Reading time: 8 minutesIn Collaboration with:
Keyword: ‘Amateur’
Keyword: ‘Amateur’
Keyword: ‘Amateur’
Keyword: ‘Amateur’
Keyword: ‘Amateur’
Keyword: ‘Amateur’
Keyword: ‘Amateur’ © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.
Reading time: 8 minutes.
A new and very amateur dictionary entry for the word ‘amateur’, developed from a Keywords Brief by Brian Dillon.
Excerpted from the brief: Select a word with high currency in discussions of art and design today. You should write a discussion of a new word or term in the manner of Raymond William’s Keywords, reflecting on its origins and current currency. Be sensitive to changes in use or meaning.’
Keyword: ‘Amateur’ © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.
Medium:
Keyword: ‘Amateur’ © Laura Robertson, 2019. Full text.
Image credit: Different Today (2018), courtesy Tim Etchells and Site Gallery
The Big Interview: Tim Etchells © Laura Robertson, The Double Negative 2019.
L-R: Tim Etchells with Janette Parris and Tony White at Strong Language, credit Chris Saunders.
Reading time: 8 mins
‘I’m fifty-six, so there’s a lot of people who I have been very close to in my life that I don’t see anymore. Whether there’s a drama there because we fell out or broke up, or ‘what happened to that person, I don’t remember’, or they died. Lots of that accumulates in your life. Of course, we carry those people with us.’
An interview with renowned artist, writer and experimental performance maker Tim Etchells (b.1962), on the occasion of his three-day event, Strong Language at Site Gallery in Sheffield, Fri 12 October to Sun 14 October 2018, as part of Off The Shelf annual literary festival. Developed from The Interview Brief by Brian Dillon and published on The Double Negative online art magazine.
Excerpted from the brief: ‘You should conduct an interview with an artist, photographer, architect or designer who has some prominence in his or her field. Select a figure with a diverse or significant career.’
The Big Interview: Tim Etchells © Laura Robertson, The Double Negative 2019.