Primary Practices: Research, Education and Organising

Experience: Ben originally trained as an artist, practicing and exhibiting work for a couple of years after graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2013. This experience led them to an increasingly critical engagement with the politics and conditions of cultural labour and production. They pursued these interests through roles in visual art production and administration, where those criticisms deepened and widened.

Ben’s involvement with self-organised art projects and organisations allowed them to develop an understanding of education as a key component of collective emancipation and self-determination, which they hope to bring to their role at SAU. Recently, Ben has focused on union organising with grassroots precarious workers union, United Voices of the World, as part of the Design and Culture Workers branch where they were recently elected as Campaigns Coordinator and Visual Arts Representative.