Hayley Newman

Hayley Newman is an Associate Professor (0.4 FTE) at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, where she has worked since 2011 and currently serves as Disability Advocate. Her practice spans performance, writing, sculpture, textiles, and music, focusing on impermanent works that explore liveable futures, communal life, and ecological stability through collaborations in diverse settings from nightclubs to galleries.

Her educational background includes a BA (hons) from Middlesex University, a Higher Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, and a practice-based PhD in Fine Art from the University of Leeds (2001). She held a DAAD scholarship at HFBK Hamburg (1994) and a Stanley Burton research scholarship at Leeds.

Newman's research investigates epistemic injustice through interdisciplinary lenses, combining environmental justice with economics, care, and disability studies. Her current work manifests as investigative/emotional environmental novels advocating for just futures, alongside textile-based personal archives responding to societal turbulence. She prioritizes collaborative projects that prefigure sustainable social structures through artistic intervention.

Her recent exhibitions (2013-2022) reveal consistent engagement with institutional critique, community resilience, and protest art. Major themes include documenting live art's institutional journey, addressing post-industrial decline through youth collaboration, pandemic response with healthcare workers, and feminist resistance. Her practice consistently merges personal narrative with systemic analysis across drawing, textiles, performance, and artist publications.

Notable honors include:

• DAAD scholarship (1994)
• Stanley Burton research scholarship (University of Leeds)
• Arts Council England Helen Chadwick Award (2005)
• ART360 award (2016)

With 27 years of art school teaching experience, Newman established UCL's practice-led MPhil/PhD program (2011-2023) and mentors emerging artists through community workshops. Her grants include the Helen Chadwick Award (supporting Oxford/BSR fellowships) and ART360 funding for legacy management. She frequently collaborates with collectives like Celebrate Different and The Gluts, integrating musical activism with visual practice.

Newman's work emerges through community partnerships including Sunderland's youth collectives, healthcare worker collaborations at Firstsite Gallery, and international networks like The Gluts performance group. She develops projects in unconventional spaces—from Tresor nightclub in Berlin to public transport—prioritizing participatory frameworks that challenge institutional boundaries while building ecological and social resilience.