Creative Engagement Producer, University of Sunderland

Dr Suzy O’Hara is a curator and academic in the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries at the University of Sunderland. Her research examines the central role that art-making and curatorship play in addressing environmental and social challenges impacting society. Her research primarily focuses on:

1.    understanding how interdisciplinary art-making and curatorial praxis can promote mutually transformative ways of working between the arts, communities, industry, and research for real world impact.

2.     a repositioning of critical modes of cross-form arts-making and curatorship within cross sector collaborations, in order to develop new insights through interdisciplinary arts practice-based research.

Her practical and theoretical outputs are disseminated both nationally and internationally through exhibitions, podcasts, websites, symposia, conference invitations and publications.

Alongside her commitment to SeaScapes, she is the research lead for the cross-faculty commissioning platform Co/Lab Sunderland, that facilitates collaborations between University of Sunderland research, external partners and diverse communities.