I am an interdisciplinary researcher, writer and teacher working at the intersection of critical heritage studies, museum studies, artistic research and the environmental humanities. Prior to joining the University of Amsterdam as Assistant Professor of Heritage, Museums and the Environment I was a post-doctoral researcher and UKRI Early Career Leadership Fellow at University College London. I received my MA and PhD from UCL Institute of Archaeology, and my BA from The University of Manchester. I took up my current position in the Department of Arts and Culture in January 2021.
Research Interests
My work primarily focuses on two intersecting research lines.
The first of these considers what I call critical-creative heritage praxis – a model for enacting critical thinking across diverse fields of heritage practice, from curatorial interventions to large-scale conservation projects. This work engages with a broad range of creative approaches and outputs, including film, photography, curating, contemporary art, experience design and literature, which I explore in relation to fundamental heritage concepts such as stewardship, preservation, inheritance and the archive. With this research – often developed through collaboration with artists, designers, curators and others – I am primarily interested in understanding how traditional sites and contexts of heritage making can become spaces of experimental social practice and imagination.
The second research line aims to bridge work in critical heritage studies, museology and the environmental humanities, with a particular focus on the ethics and politics of climate change, sustainability and the Just Transition. Key examples of my work in this area include the edited book Deterritorializing the Future: Heritage in, of and after the Anthropocene (Open Humanities Press, 2020), contributions to the Korea-Netherlands curatorial platform Drifting Curriculum, and the international design competition Reimagining Museums for Climate Action, which I co-led from 2020-2021. This final project culminated in an exhibition at Glasgow Science Centre as part of COP-26, with radical new museological proposals on display from Singapore, Indonesia, the United States, Brazil and the UK .
I have published four book length projects (one monograph and three edited collections) on these subjects, and over 40 articles, essays, book chapters, reviews and other texts in peer-reviewed journals, edited volumes, exhibition catalogues and magazines.
Currently Working On
My ongoing projects give a good sense of how the above areas of work intersect:
- In May 2023 I was awarded NWO pilot funding for a project called Cultivating Museum Ecologies Otherwise, which explores museological spaces and practices through an ecological lens and asks what it might mean for such institutions to embrace anti-systemic eco-politics
- In 2019 I was awarded funding by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council to develop a collaborative research and engagement project called New Trajectories in Curatorial Experience Design. Working closely with immersive design specialists ANAGRAM, this project was subsequently (2022) awarded further funding to build a new augmented reality experience exploring issues of disobedience, protest and the legacies of colonialism in contemporary Britain. The AR experience launched in 2023 as part of the London Film Festival Expanded programme
- At UvA I am currently coordinator of the Artistic Research Research Group, a seminar series and collaborative platform which aims to promote the exchange of ideas between artists and scholars from a wide range of fields and disciplines
- In November 2021 I became co-editor of the international peer-reviewed journal Museums & Social Issues. We relaunched the journal in January 2023 with a three-issue special volume on Repair – a theme that I aim to explore in greater depth through future research and writing on Reparative Museology
- In December 2023 I began a new project on heritage and petroculture, funded by Horizon Europe. This work will involve collaborations with a consortium of arts, cultural and academic partners across Europe (Germany, Norway, Portugal, Finland, the UK and the Netherlands).
Teaching and Supervision
I teach and supervise across heritage studies, museum studies and artistic research. Courses I have convened include Cultural Memory, Contemporary Art and the Anthropocene, Rethinking Sustainability in and Through Arts and Culture, Research Matters: Knowledge Production Within and Beyond the Academy, and ART and RESEARCH.
In March 2023 I took on a new role as Programme Coordinator of the Bachelors Global Arts, Culture and Politics, which aims to demonstrate the value of the arts and humanities in addressing many of the most urgent challenges facing the world today. This programme brings together several of the themes that have animated my work to date, with four majors focused on Culture & Social Justice, Art & Media, the Human & AI, and Reimagining Sustainability.
In May 2022 – at the end of my first full academic year of teaching – I was named Lecturer of the Year for the Faculty of Humanities as part of a university wide competition organised by students.
I have supervised around 25 Masters theses on various issues related to heritage, memory and museums.
I am currently supervising five PhD candidates. Giulia Bellinetti (Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis) is working on Art Institutions in the Age of Ecological Emergency; Maria Konschake (PXL-MAD School of Arts Hasselt) is a practice-based researcher interested in deviation, jewellery, identity and memory; Ren Ewart (Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture) is developing a project called Tracing Repair: Needlework Mending Within and Beyond the Museum; Jon Stam (LUCA School of Arts) is researching Rituals of Access – Designing Interfaces for Agency in Museum Spaces; Maria Suarez Caicedo (Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture) is a PhD on the Critical Heritage Ecologies initiative, looking at issues of heritage, art and land reparations in Colombia.
Summary CV
EMPLOYMENT
Oct 2023 – / UD1 (Assistant Professor / Senior Lecturer), University of Amsterdam
Programme Coordinator Global Arts, Culture and Politics (March 2023 – )
Member of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture
Jan 2021- Sept 2023 / UD2 (Assistant Professor / Lecturer), University of Amsterdam
2019-20 / AHRC Early Career Leadership Fellow, UCL Institute of Archaeology
2017-19 / Post-Doctoral Research Associate. AHRC Heritage Priority Area, UCL Institute of Archaeology
2016-17 / Project Curator, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Library and Collections
2009-18 / Researcher, Research Associate and Consultant, Barker Langham
EDUCATION
2011-15 / PhD, University College London. Rethinking Heritage and Photography: Comparative Case Studies from Cyprus and Cambodia. Date of award: 28 September 2015. Supervisors: Dr. Beverley Butler and Prof. Paul Basu
2007-08 / MA Cultural Heritage Studies. UCL Institute of Archaeology. Distinction
2003-06 / BA (Hons) Ancient History and Archaeology. The University of Manchester. First Class
GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS (Select)
2025 / NWA-ORC (Dutch Research Agenda: Research by Consortia). JUST ART: Creating Common Grounds for Climate Justice Through Artistic Research. Co-Investigator and Work Package Lead.
2023 / Horizon Europe. PITCH: Petroculture’s Intersections with The Cultural Heritage Sector in the Content of Green Transitions. Co-Principle Investigator.
2023 / Dutch Research Council (NWO) Social Sciences & Humanities Open Competition. Cultivating Museum Ecologies Otherwise. Principal Investigator
2022 / AHRC Follow-on-Funding for Impact and Engagement. Ghosts of Solid Air. International Co-Investigator
2021 / British Academy Seed Funding. Anthropocene Museologies. International Co-Investigator
2020 / Visiting Fellowship. Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
2019 / UKRI/RCUK Innovation Fellowship. Highlight Notice in the AHRC Leadership Fellowship scheme (Early Career Route). Project Title: ‘New Trajectories in Curatorial Experience Design’. Lead applicant and Principal Investigator
2011 / ESRC Research Studentship. UCL
AWARDS
2022 / Lecturer of the Year. University of Amsterdam (Faculty of Humanities)
Colin Sterling 