SURE

Dr Suzy O’Hara is a Senior Lecturer of Creative Practice and leads the Centre for Creative Practice Research at University of Sunderland. Her research is concerned with exploring the central role that art-making and curatorial praxis play in shaping regenerative and inclusive economies and addressing pressing environmental and social challenges impacting society. Her practice led research and innovation projects challenge traditional disciplinary silos to evolve new, direct ways of working across academic, cultural and industry contexts. This is evidenced by a creative practice research portfolio that that delivers mutually transformative outcomes with interdisciplinary partners (spanning art, science, health and wellbeing, cultural, heritage, education and creative, digital and cultural industries). Recent projects include curating public programmes that explore the role that cross - sector curatorship and participatory artmaking can play in engaging local communities with pioneering Big Data scientific discovery (One Cell At A Time), marine environment and heritage protection (SeaScapes CoLab), and urgent practical challenges caused by coastal erosion (Waste Futures Labs). With Victoria Bradbury, she is the co-editor of Art Hack Practice: Critical Intersections of Art, Innovation and the Maker Movement (Routledge, 2020).