Nicola Simpson

Dr Nicola Simpson is a Research Impact Fellow at Norwich University of the Arts, specializing in practice-based research in art, design, and media. Her work focuses on the intersection of Buddhist philosophy and avant-garde art, particularly the oeuvre of Benedictine monk and artist Dom Sylvester Houédard. She supports researchers in adopting Research Data Management models and Impact Toolkits to enhance practice-based research dissemination.

• Key Research Areas: Concrete poetry, Tantric Buddhist influences on art, and interdisciplinary art-historical methodologies.
• Exhibitions: tantric poetries (Lisson Gallery, 2020), Performing No Thingness (NUA East Gallery, 2016), and frog pond plop (NUA, 2010).
• Publications: Edited volumes on Houédard's work and essays exploring his typographic art's spiritual dimensions.

Her curatorial practice repositions artists within Western Buddhist encounters, emphasizing experiential transmission through performance and kinetic art. Active in performance art, she has presented works like Vertical Group Exercises (Chelsea Space, 2018) and collaborated with galleries like Lower.Green and Richard Saltoun.

Recent conference engagements include discussions on collage in post-war British art (Tate, 2021) and the role of 'nothingness' in avant-garde practices (Manchester Art Gallery, 2019).