Dr Paula Roush

I am a Lecturer in Photography at the School of Arts and Creative Industries. As a visual artist and photographer, I am interested in place-based research, and attuned to eco-feminist philosophies, querying photographic archives from a decolonial perspective.
This has led to two main strands of research, encapsulated under the acronym ‘msdm,’ four letters that synthesize a practice characterised by ‘mobile strategies of display & mediation.’

1-Investigation into the affordances of inner-city vacant buildings as creative spaces, and the development of the house-studio-gallery as a model for a live/work artist’s run space;
2-Research into photobook publishing, at the intersection of photographic art and book art processes, through the development of the imprint ‘msdm publications,’ characterised by experimental editorial design and books as exhibition spaces.
I also run ‘Page-Turner: photography, the book, and self-publishing,’ a platform to support emerging photobook publishers. Initiated at the Lisbon Photobook Fair in 2015,
Page-turner has collaborated with the Victoria & Albert Museum Academy, Aarhus Photobook Week, and the Finish Association of Photographic Artists in collaboration with The Finnish Museum of Photography.
Recent presentations:
MUSEUMS WITHOUT WALLS conference+exhibition, Isabel Bader Centre Queen’s University, Kingston Canada, August 2022
LIQUID MEMORIES ~to read with water, Borough Rd Gallery London UK May 2022
BOX. UNBOX, Godsbanen Arts Centre, Aarhus Denmark April 2022
Recent publications:
‘liquid memories ~to read with water,’ msdm publications, 2022
‘News from NowhereLockdown (or An Epoch of Unrest),’ msdm publications, 2021
‘Hypnotic Highway,’ msdm publications, 2021
Photobook Is, Did You Mean Photo Book Is, msdm publications, 2020
Recent critical reviews of my practice include
Annette Gilbert and Andreas Bulloff, Library of Artistic print on demand, a collaboration of Free University of Berlin, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Bavarian State Library, 2022
Francisco Varela, "Expanded Practice of the Artist’s Book: Immersion in The Artist’s Museum" presented at the conference Connections: Exploring Heritage, Architecture, Cities, Art, Media, University of Kent, Canterbury; AMPS (Architecture_Media_Politics_Society) 2020

Regularly taught courses: Photography and the Gallery See students' exhibitions here https://www.msdm.org.uk/pag Self-Publishing and the Photobook. see students' photobooks here https://www.msdm.org.uk/spp