Having completed BA studies in Photography in Athens, Greece, Prof. Alexandra Moschovi graduated from Goldsmiths College, London in 1997 with an MA in Image and Communication. In 2004, she was awarded a doctorate title in Art History by the Courtauld Institute of Art, London for the thesis “Photo-phobia and Photo-philia: The Neglect and Accommodation of Photography in British Art Institutions in the Postmodern Period”, completed under the supervision of Prof. Julian Stallabrass.
Since 2002, Moschovi has been lecturing in Art History, Critical Theory, and the History and Practice of Photography at the Courtauld of Art and Newcastle University as visiting lecturer, and, since 2006, at the University of Sunderland where she currently holds a full-time position as a Professor of Photograph
more...Having completed BA studies in Photography in Athens, Greece, Prof. Alexandra Moschovi graduated from Goldsmiths College, London in 1997 with an MA in Image and Communication. In 2004, she was awarded a doctorate title in Art History by the Courtauld Institute of Art, London for the thesis “Photo-phobia and Photo-philia: The Neglect and Accommodation of Photography in British Art Institutions in the Postmodern Period”, completed under the supervision of Prof. Julian Stallabrass.
Since 2002, Moschovi has been lecturing in Art History, Critical Theory, and the History and Practice of Photography at the Courtauld of Art and Newcastle University as visiting lecturer, and, since 2006, at the University of Sunderland where she currently holds a full-time position as a Professor of Photography/Curating. Moschovi has also been regularly invited to deliver research seminars and keynote talks and contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate courses in academic institutions in Europe (Kings College, London; Sotheby's Institute of Art, London; University of Leiden, The Netherlands), the United States (Princeton University) and Asia (Institut Seni Indonesia, Yogyakarta; State University of Surabaya).
Moschovi’s research seeks to situate photographic practice within broader art historical, museological and visual culture debates, combining theory and practice, whereby practice takes the form of curation. This interdisciplinary knowledge is disseminated to both academic and art specialist audiences through different scholarly publications, ranging from survey books, edited volumes and contributions to anthologies, to academic conferences and public lectures, as well as exhibitions in collaboration with academic institutions, museums and commercial art galleries.
Recent research projects have received funding by the British Academy, the University of London, the University of Sunderland, and Princeton University. In 2008, Moschovi was awarded a Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Research Fellowship at the Hellenic Studies Centre of Princeton University.
With a view to advancing knowledge exchange and cross-disciplinary debates in and around the History of Photography, Moschovi co-founded and co-convened (2005-2010) the History of Photography Research Seminar at the Courtauld Institute of Art, featuring a number of internationally acclaimed speakers, such as Graham Smith (University of St Andrews/History of Photography journal), Mark Haworth Booth (V&A), Sandra Phillips (SF MOMA), and Simon Baker (Tate) among many others.
Moschovi co-authored the first illustrated history of Hellenic photography entitled Greece through Photographs: 160 Years of Visual Testimony (Melissa Publishing, Greek/2007; English/2009). Adopting a social history approach and including significant unpublished archival material, this publication expanded the developing discourse on the historisation of Greek photography also incorporating practices (amateur, applied photography, studio practice, life-style photography) not ordinarily included in official photographic histories. This book is now a key reference in photographic syllabi in HE institutions in Greece and used in Hellenic Studies departments in the UK and North America.
Moschovi was also the instigator and co-organizer of the international conference The Versatile Image: Photography in the Era of Web 2.0, University of Sunderland, June 2011. With 24 international visual artists, curators and scholars from across photography, social sciences, journalism, media and museum studies, this multidisciplinary conference explored the novel currency of the networked image in art, visual culture and everyday life. The subsequent edited volume The Versatile Image: Photography, Digital Technologies and the Internet (Leuven University Press, 2013) expanded photographic debates by moving earlier conversations of the digital in relation to manipulation and authenticity towards everyday, professional and creative uses of the networked image as a connected process of communication.
Moschovi's research on the accommodation of photographic arts in the museum has been presented internationally in major academic conferences and research seminars (MoMA, NYC; Tate; Rijksmuseum; Princeton University) and multidisciplinary anthologies and journals, in English, Greek, German, French, and Mandarin. Being interdisciplinary and based on extensive archival research, Moschovi's monograph A Gust of Photo-philia: Photography in the Art Museum (Leuven University Press/2020) offers an in-depth understanding of the contexts and practices that affected photography’s institutionalisation as art and the changes this brought to the art museum.
Over the years, Moschovi has also sat on the advisory and editorial boards of academic journals and reviews in Britain and Greece, namely the Journal of Greek Media and Culture, Rebus, Immediations, a: The Athens Contemporary Art Review and Photographia
