CV: Dr Sage Brice
School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Bristol, England, BS8 1SS
Sage.Brice@Bristol.ac.uk +44(0)7810847970
Sage Brice combines research in cultural geography with a lively contemporary art practice. Her work incorporates drawing, sculpture, and socially-engaged, participatory art practices. She has exhibited widely, including at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol; B-Side Festival, Portland; and Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York. Sage is an incoming teaching fellow at Durham Geography (from Jan 2021), and an honorary research fellow in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol, UK. Her research interrogates the politics of nature, particularly in relation to queer and trans ecologies of identity. She has an affinity for watery and fluid landscapes, and recent work explores problems of identity and ecology in the Huleh wetlands, in northern Israel-Palestine. Twitter: @Sage_Brice
Education
PhD Human geography 09/2015 – 07/2020
University of Bristol
- Thesis title: Practicing vulnerability: drawing a transindividual politics of ecology and identity
- Thesis supervisors: Dr Merle Patchett (Bristol), Dr Joe Gerlach (Bristol), Prof Owain Jones (Bath Spa)
- Conducted 6 month international residency at the Hula Valley Research Centre in Israel-Palestine, 2016-17 and 6-week preliminary visit, 2016
- Completed 6 week language training in vernacular Palestinian Arabic at Mt Carmel Arabic Immersion, 2016
- Research interests:
- Politics of nature, conservation and ecology; waterscapes
- Gender and sexual identities; ontologies of difference
- Post-structural philosophy; affect and non-representational theories
- Drawing as research method; practice-based research
- Student Teaching Award (runner-up)
MSc Human Geography (Society and Space) – Distinction 09/2014 – 09/2015
University of Bristol
- Outstanding Academic Performance Prize
BA(hons) Environmental Art – Distinction in Historical and Critical Studies 09/2003 – 06/2006
Glasgow School of Art
- W O Hutcheson Drawing Prize
Awards and scholarships
2017 AHRC Student Development Fund – 6 month international placement, £14,350
Cabot Institute Innovation Fund – artist residency, £1,000
University of Bristol Alumni Association – travel award, £500
2015-2020 AHRC Student Development Fund – immersive language study and miscellaneous grants, £8,388
AHRC Doctoral Studentship award – University of Bristol SWW DTP, £56,224
2015 School of Geographical Sciences Bursary – MSc Society and Space, University of Bristol, £1,000
2014-2015 Somerset Community Foundation – public art funding grant, £2,000
2008 Capmark Europe / Society of Wildlife Artists – professional development bursary, £500
Publications (scholarly research outputs)
Brice, S. (accepted for publication) ‘Trans subjectifications: drawing an (im)personal politics of gender, fashion and style’. Geohumanities
- A ‘practices and curations’ contribution drawing out the complexity and nuance in trans experiences of gender expression to suggest a novel theoretical approach to everyday practices of subjectification.
Brice, S. (2020) ‘Geographies of vulnerability: mapping trans-individual geometries of identity and resistance’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 45(3): 664-677. Doi.org/10.1111tran.12358
- A provocative article on the political ontology of gender identity, pushing for a generative realignment of non-representational theories with queer and feminist geographies.
Howkins, A., Dudley, M., Coates, P., Badcoe, T., Brice, S., Haines, D., Merchant, P., Publicover, L., Stone, R., Would, A. (2019) ‘An excursion in the Environmental Humanities: Some thoughts on fieldwork, collaboration and disciplinary identity following a day trip to the island of Lundy’. Green Letters. 23: 39-53. DOI: 10.1080/14688417.2019.1593211
- A collective article asking how inter-disiciplinary practice might complicate habitual understandings of identity and belonging and unsettle responses to a new place in environmental humanities fieldwork.
Brice, Sage. (2018) ‘Situating skill: contemporary observational drawing as a spatial method in geographical research’. Cultural Geographies. 25(1): 135-158. DOI: 10.1177/1474474017702513
- A methodological paper on the use of observational drawing to cultivate posthumanist sensibilities for research in multi-species landscapes. Ranked in the 25 most cited papers in Cultural Geographies in 2019.
Brice, Sage and Fernandez Arconada, Seila. (2018) ‘Riding the Tide: Socially-engaged art and resilience in an uncertain future’. Governing for Resilience in Vulnerable Places. Taylor and Francis: 224-243
- A collaborative chapter drawing employing critical sensibilities developed in the field of socially-engaged art to complicate and enhance ‘resilience’ thinking in the social sciences.
McEwen, L., Reeves, D., Brice, S [listed as J]., Meadley, FK., Lewis, K., Macdonald, N. (2013) ‘Archiving memories of changing flood risk: Interdisciplinary explorations around knowledge for resilience’. Journal of Arts and Communities, 4(1&2): 46-74
- A collaborative article exploring the critical role of fiction in researching archival memories of wetland landscapes.
In prep
Marr, N., Brice, S. et al. ‘Motifs for Relations’ – Compendium article (in review with Geohumanities)
Brice, S. and Berlin, S. ‘The Ontopolitics of Gender as Transindividual Relation’ – invited chapter in Cremin, C. and Buchanan, I. (eds). Schizoanalysis of Trans Studies. Bloomsbury (draft stage)
Brice, S. ‘Resistance without subjects: non-representational geographies and the problem of trans-individual identity’ – invited chapter in Sarah Hughes (ed) Critical Geographies of Resistance, an edited volume (book contracted with Edward Elgar; draft chapter due 1 April 2021).
Practice-based publications (exhibition catalogues and book chapters)
2016 The Crucible, OSR Projects and B-Side Festival, Portland
Arts of Hospitality, The Hospitality Project, University of Bristol, UK
2014 “Succession” in Dark Mountain collection, vol. 6
The Power of the Sea, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK
2006 Ruth Barker and Niall Macdonald, Interview: in Placed Upon the Horizon – A Permanent Public Artwork, South Lanarkshire Council, East Kilbride
International conference presentations and invited workshops (selected)
2019 Crane-human encounters in field and studio: Drawing the dissolution of unitary identity – presentation at RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2019, London
Becoming-vulnerable: drawing the dissolution of unitary identity – presentation at ‘Persistence of Vision: Women Reframing Animation’ conference, Goldsmiths University, London
2018 Trans subjectivisations: drawing an (im)personal politics of gender, fashion and style – workshop at the inaugural Critically Queer international conference, University of Bristol
Animating Nonrepresentational Landscapes – presentation at RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2018, Cardiff
Transindividuation and trans individuation: towards an (im)personal politics for relational landscape geographies – presentation at Annual Meeting of AAG 2018, New Orleans
2017 Thinking Ecologies: drawing cross-disciplinary encounters in contested wetland landscapes – presentation at RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2017, London
2016 Watery lives: Drawing multi-species narratives from field and archive – presentation at RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2016, London
2015 An Exercise in Deliberate Anthropomorphism – ‘Invisible Landscapes’ seminar, OSR Projects, Somerset
Uncertain Shores – ‘Landscaping Change: Water’ seminar, Arnolfini, Bristol
2014 Riding the Tide II – ‘Of the Earth’ international conference, Walk On, University of Plymouth
Modelling to meaning: Communicating uncertainty in flood risk science – Centre for Flooding, Communities and Resilience, University of the West of England
Drawing closer: skilled methodologies for more-than-human geography – RGS-IBG 2014
Crafting – Politics and Matter Research Group, University of Bristol
FutureMuseum – ‘Learning to Live: Floods and Futures’, AHRC Living Flood Histories network, Guildhall Arts Centre, Gloucester
Organisation of conference sessions
2016 Beyond interdisciplinarity: Situating practice in the art-geography nexus – initiated and chaired a themed full day session co-coordinated with Prof Owain Jones, Dr J D Dewsbury and Dr Merle Patchett, at the internationally-attended Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference 2016, London
Exhibitions and public engagement activities (selected)
2019 Somali Drylands – Installation, Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, UK
Ginger Beer 002 – Exhibition, The Island, Bristol, UK
2017 Farmers’ Hour – Radio interview, Upper Galilee Radio, Israel-Palestine
Crane cultures – Installation, Hula Valley Research Centre, Israel-Palestine
2016 Weather Station II – Exhibition, B-Side Festival, Portland, Dorset , UK
Imagined Landscapes – Exhibition, RWA, Bristol, UK
2015 The Water Knows All My Secrets – Exhibition, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, US
Weather Station – Exhibition, OSR Projects, West Coker, Somerset, UK
Paper Makers – NERC-funded Art-Science collaboration, University of Glasgow, UK
2014 PaThOu – Dutch-English exchange, Wells Cathedral Museum, Somerset, UK
Speculative Ground: Proposals on Paper – Exhibition, University of Edinburgh, UK
The Power of the Sea – Exhibition, RWA, Bristol, UK
Teaching Experience (undergraduate and postgraduate)
2017-19 Philosophy and Social Theory for Geographers Teaching assistant
BSc Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
- Created original and engaging fortnightly 2hr seminars to support undergraduate learning outcomes in a demanding and intellectually challenging 2nd-year module
- Taught introduction to key philosophers (Marx, Foucault, Butler, Deleuze & Guattari, Spinoza, Bergson, Simondon, Haraway, Bennett)
- Facilitated non-judgemental and expansive space for students to engage with novel concepts and develop intellectual confidence
- Runner-up for university-wide Student Teaching Award 2018
2015-18 Experimental methods: Drawing Senior associate lecturer
MSc Society and Space, University of Bristol
- Taught innovative artistic and hands-on research methods to postgraduate students, based on my own practice-led research
- Supported students to experiment and progress beyond established competencies
- Coordinated off-campus fieldwork sessions
Animal geographies: zoological gardens; fashioning feathers Demonstrator
BSc Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
- Guided student groups in both off-campus fieldwork and classroom practicals
2018 Qualitiative Research Methods: Creative Methods Senior associate lecturer
BSc Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
- Composed and delivered a theoretical and practical introduction to creative research methods for undergraduate students
- Expanded students’ concept of research beyond traditional methodologies
- Combined traditional lecture format with hands-on creative workshop
2015 Drawing connections: public engagement and art in the social realm Visiting lecturer
Science and Policy module, University of the West of England
- Developed a workshop for postgraduate taught students on a cross-disciplinary module, introducing principles of public art and engagement
Continuing Professional Development
2019 Training for Social Action Trainers
Training for Change/Campaign Bootcamp, Birmingham
- Participated in advanced-level residential course on transformational pedagogy
- Acquired core skills in facilitation, pedagogy, and managing group dynamics
- Engaged in peer learning with expert international team of social justice campaigners
2015 Starting to Teach
Teacher training, University of Bristol
- Attained qualification to teach undergraduate and postgraduate students
- Gained understanding of key teaching responsibilities including preparedness to handle challenging classroom situations
External responsibilities, memberships and leadership roles
2019 > Ad-hoc reviewer, Cultural Geographies and Geohumanities
- Improved editorial skills and expertise for academic peer review, with a focus on enhancing coherence and theoretical rigour of submitted articles
2018 > Founding member, Dandelion Collective
- Facilitating sensitive and trauma-informed transformative workshops to address underlying causes of resistance to trans recognition and inclusion in women’s and feminist spaces
2017-18 Equality and Diversity Representative, AHRC South West and Wales DTP
- Contributed to regular board meetings of the Doctoral Training Partnership, representing LGBT+ students
- Successfully implemented reform to create more inclusive enrolment systems
- Provided strategic guidance on measures to diversify student body
2015 > Postgraduate Fellow, Royal Geographical Society
- Developed organisational and curatorial competencies, coordinating a full-day special session on creative research methodologies at the RGS-IBG
