Sign Up Sessions - Day 1 - 11:45 - 12:45. 

Sessions Available:  

There are three options to choose from for the first block of sign-up sessions. The details of all three sessions are below, and you must use the relevant link to register your attendance for your chosen session via Inkpath.

All three sessions will run from 11:45 - 12:45. 

Westminster Menswear Archive Interpretation Workshop

Session Details: 

This is a workshop considering the conference theme of 'challenging pasts, critical futures', in relation to objects from the Westminster Menswear Archive (WMA).

Participants will engage with artifacts from the WMA that raise questions around ethical collecting, interpretation and display. The workshop will begin with an introduction from the WMA Curator, participants will then have an opportunity to ask questions of the objects from the collection. The aim of the workshop is to interpret the objects for temporary public display during the conference.

Participants will have the opportunity to handle objects from the WMA collections and contribute to informing interpretation and display idea for the archive.

Please note that objects used in this workshop may incorporate images, references to historical events, or engage with discussions around discrimination that some people may consider sensitive, or find offensive or disturbing.

Speakers / Facilitators: 

Dr Danielle Sprecher is the curator of the Westminster Menswear Archive at the University of Westminster, London. She is a historian whose research focuses on the history of British menswear and men’s fashion, exploring the industry from design to production and final consumption. As a curator, she has worked with several historical dress collections across the United Kingdom. Sprecher has co-curated several notable exhibitions, including Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive (2019), Undercover (2021), and Umbro 100: Sportswear x Fashion (2024). Sprecher is the co-author of the book Inside the Westminster Menswear Archive, Bloomsbury (2024). 

Thomas Chambers is a doctoral researcher attached to the Science Museum Group. His research is focused on the histories of mundane objects within the separate collections of the SMG’s National Science and Media Museum and National Railway Museum. His research aims to uncover fresh perspectives that enable linkages between the Group’s distinct collections. His previous research has focused on the histories of twentieth-century subcultures.

Techne Alumni Panel

Session Details: 

Join us for a panel of several Techne alumni coming together to discuss their experiences of being Techne students and what they've gone on to do once they reached the end of their PhDs. There will also be the opportunity to put your your questions to the panellists directly.  

The speakers are:
Giulia Casalini (Roehampton)
Anna Meadmore (Royal Holloway)
Kristin O'Donnell (Brighton)
Sarah Worgan (Kingston)

Speakers / Facilitators: 

Giulia Casalini (she/they) is a freelance curator-artist-researcher and transfeminist organiser based in London. In their PhD (University of Roehampton, Technē-funded, 2024), they analysed queer-trans-feminist live art from transnational, anti-colonial perspectives. Their (eco)transfeminist and queer activism aims to build and bridge communities across the globe through the arts and (nature)cultures. They are currently reflecting on how healing should be rooted in curating through well-being and spiritual practices. They do so through ongoing practices of noticing and unlearning colonial patterns in knowledge-making, work praxis, social relationality and institutional logic.

Anna Meadmore trained at Elmhurst and The Royal Ballet School (1988-91), later gaining an MA in Dance from Surrey University. In 1994, she joined The Royal Ballet School as a lecturer and curator. Anna contributed to Ninette de Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist (Cave & Worth. Dance Books, 2012); co-edited with Prof. Richard Cave Robert Helpmann: the Many Faces of a Theatrical Dynamo (Dance Books, 2018); and contributed to Jennifer Jackson’s Ballet, the Essential Guide (Crowood Press, 2021). In 2017, Anna was awarded an AHRC TECHNE Scholarship; her thesis examined how Ninette de Valois’s philosophical convictions and creative ambitions shaped an ethos for ballet in England, 1925-1934 (RHUL, 2024).

Dr Kristin O’Donnell is a cultural historian and senior lecturer in Applied Humanities at Birmingham Newman University. Kristin’s research explores how engagement with historical narratives through the arts can reveal the politics of commemoration. This interdisciplinary research examines how individuals, artists, and nation-states use the past to shape present-day identity, constructing boundaries of belonging structured by class, gender, and ethnicity. Her PhD, "The Cultural Politics of Commemoration: Participatory Art and Britain’s Great War During the Centenary Moment," reveals how nationwide mass participatory artworks emerged as a significant commemorative innovation amid the neoliberal memory boom. Kristin is also a Governor of Birmingham Newman University.  

Sarah Worgan completed her PhD in English Literature at Kingston University in 2022 with the support of TECHNE. She currently works in student services for an online university. Sarah is a member of the International Gothic Association and IN-CSA. 

Careers Workshop: Giving and Receiving Feedback Differently

Session Details:

The journey to impact (and being able to articulate our impact) is strongly influenced by the feedback conversations we have.  We are also in a position to help peers by facilitating feedback conversations to support them. For researchers, curiosity, asking questions, taking risks, and adapting are fundamental characteristics of academic practice. They are also, coincidentally, fundamental to giving and receiving feedback.  In this session, we are going to connect your research skills to techniques taken from both careers guidance and coaching practice to develop your feedback practice. For the session please think of an idea that you’d like feedback on (make it low stakes – the focus on the process of giving and receiving feedback, not the idea).

Speakers / Facilitators: 

Darcey Gillie is a qualified, professional freelance careers and education consultant with 15 years experience supporting the careers of research staff and research students. She has led the career development programme for Techne since 2021, and is also research staff careers consultant at the University of Edinburgh.