Hi folks – a pleasure to meet everyone, virtually at least. And sorry this is a little late! While not a working artist, I’ve always had an interest in art. I grew up (in Vancouver) drawing and painting; something picked up from my mother who is herself an accomplished artist, mainly of watercolour and acrylic landscapes – but not so much the conceptual sort. Unfortunately, my participation in the doing of art rather went by the wayside since university – something she’s gotten after me about for ‘giving it up’.

Since that time art for me has become more of an academic interest – although I must admit I’ve never thought of my work being related explicitly to ‘art’. Like Ian, I studied archaeology at university – in this context art was often the object of study: a beautifully carved stone bowl, for example. In graduate school (I moved to the UK in 2000) its meaning shifted as I became interested in analysing the formation and meaning of cultural landscapes – particularly those created out of the social inequalities of colonialism. Here, art objects (whether sepia photographs, lithographs or oil paintings) became wonderful things for shedding light on the history of peoples and places. More recently, as a teacher and researcher, I’ve become interested in how art (and a host of other things that wouldn’t normally acquire this label) intervenes in society and culture; so in this sense, I think I agree with Kate in that we should also try to understand its consequences.

I live and work in Aberdeen with my lovely wife Ana – it will be two years this September that we left ‘home’ in Sheffield. Indeed, Sheffield is my link to this most interesting project. It was there that I met Steve, serendipitously, through my good friend Tim, who I see has yet to introduce himself. I look forward to meeting the rest of you in the near future.