About
Sarah Vowden (she/her) is an interdisciplinary researcher and writer working within the realms of publication, film and workshop. Through her MA Research Architecture (2017-2019), she developed her research project Contact/less which explores the absence of touch in a contactless transaction as a way to reimagine the socio-sensorial conditions of contemporary capitalism.
Sarah’s research coalesces around exchange. Her writing swells and shrinks in scale, speculating future(s) that centre solidarity and care. Sarah is interested in archiving as a pedagogical tool, and ways to co-produce knowledge.
Sarah’s writing has been published in Flat Journal, Radical Art Review and Feeeels Magazine.
Beyond her research practice, Sarah has curated and produced art programmes at The World Transformed, Brainchild Festival and Staffordshire St Gallery in Peckham. She is an community engagement practitioner at the Museum of London.
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Published Work
‘Rethinking Culture: The History of São Paulo’s Casa Do Povo’, Radical Art Review, Jun 22
'Contact/less and its Myths' Feeeels Magazine, (Pending Publication)
‘Contact/less Exchange’, Flat Journal, Dec 21
'Measures of Closeness: The Contactless Condition', Platform Austria Reader for 17th Venice Biennale, Co-written with Ofri Cnaani.
Contactless Reader, eflux, May 20. Co-written with Ofri Cnaani.
‘The Architecture of Brechtian Cybernetics', Footnotes, IF publications, Sept 18
Appearances
Speaker, ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ Left Book Club Panel, (Feb 2021)
Presented paper, ‘Contact/less Exchange and Pandemic Proximities’, Critical Finance Conference, Goldsmiths, University of London (Aug 2020)
Presented Paper ‘4cm: The space of Contact/less Exchange,’ Intersections of Finance and Society conference, City University, London (Dec 2019)
Speaker, ‘Arts, Politics and Culture’ Youth Workshop, Demand the Impossible (Oct 2018)
Speaker, 'Unless the Water is Safer than the Land' MA Research Architecture presentation, Sonic Acts Academy, Amsterdam, (Feb 2018)
Facilitation / Production
Producer and Writer - TWTFM Podcast. Lead on episodes 'Debt', 'Saunas' and 'Holidays' (2020-21)
Arts Programmer, Brainchild Festival (2020-2022)
Facilitator, A Good Night Out Reading Group: DIY Community Centre’s, The World Transformed (Sept 2020)
Facilitator - Arts and Cultural Workers Day, The World Transformed (Sept 2020)
Facilitator - Collective Listening Session on Afrofuturism, The World Transformed (Sept 2020)
Arts Programme Producer, The World Transformed Festival, Liverpool 2018
Facilitator ,'Imagining Radical Communities of Care: The Anti-University from London to Athens', Anti-University, (June 2018)
Exhibitions
Exhibited at ‘Common Sensing’, MA Research Architecture Exhibition, Goldsmiths (Sept 2019)
Curator and Co-Founder, ‘Softworks’ Group works-in-progress exhibition, Avalon Café, London (Aug 2022)
Residencies
Artist in Residence, ArteSumapaz, Colombia (Apr 2023)
Qualifications
MA Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London, Distinction (2017-2019)
BA Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Goldsmiths University of London, First Class Honours (2014-2017)