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Dear Recruitment Panel, Application for the post of Hub Administrator – Tyneside I was delighted to learn of this opportunity through my friend ___, and I enclose my CV with this letter for your consideration. Through previous work experience and qualifications, I am highly competent in using the full suite of Microsoft Office applications and their open source equivalents, particularly Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as Outlook. I have training in using content management systems for maintaining websites and am familiar with WordPress. I am quick to learn new systems and if I do not know or understand something, I will make a point of finding out. I work diligently and make the utmost effort to pay attention to detail, for which I have received praise from proofreading clients and publishers of my academic work. I manage my time and tasks by keeping my diary up to date, making prioritised lists and keeping a well-labelled archive of documents. I keep ahead so that I can be ...

Post-Agreement Cinema: The Northern Ireland Conflict in Contemporary British and Irish Screen Cultures Abstract Film and television production in Northern Ireland has experienced significant shifts since the Peace Agreement was signed in 1998. During this time, major changes in views of the Northern Ireland conflict in other parts of the British Isles have emerged. This project will analyse the landscape of contemporary film and television across the UK and Ireland with a particular focus on inter-regional productions that engage with the conflict’s legacy. As well as major publications and a vlog, outputs will include curating an exhibition of visual art relevant to the project and a series of film screenings with talks. Details of current and past research My research interests lie in contemporary film and visual culture focusing on conflict and post-conflict themes. I am drawn to convergences between cinema and visual art, particularly inv...

Experience producing podcasts I have been making Audiovisual Cultures with a consistent biweekly output for four years. It is an arts and culture podcast exploring different aspects across film, art and media with an emphasis on their significance in or impact on culture more broadly. The episode format is determined each time by the topic and who is involved and includes interviews with practitioners or researchers about their work, analysis of specific works or phenomena with a guest or co-host, scripted essays, panel discussions, and conference coverage. In the past couple of years I have mostly recorded remotely using Zoom, Zencastr or live streams and have connected with fascinating guests all over the world. AVC is regularly downloaded in at least 20 countries. Through making Audiovisual Cultures I have developed knowledge and skills in audio recording and editing, including extensive use of Digital Audio Workstations and editing software, and ways to achieve the best possible qu...

I was delighted to learn of the Deputy Director post as this is exactly the opportunity I am seeking to take a more active role in the arts and culture sector. I am interested in the Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival as I am drawn to areas of convergence between cinema and the visual arts. An experienced film academic, I have extensive knowledge of contemporary film and visual art as demonstrated in my peer-reviewed publications, contributions to arts magazines, making Audiovisual Cultures Podcast and holding degrees in the field. As a skilled administrator and networker with a passion for facilitating others’ development, I will excel in this post. My experience in a comparable role is shown in my directorship of Cosy Pea Pod, the creative company under which I produce Audiovisual Cultures , a film, arts and media podcast featuring analysis of cultural works and interviews with a wide range of practitioners, including artists, filmmakers and organisers of film festivals and symp...

In November 2020 North East-based artist Sally Madge died. At 74, Madge was still creating her legacy. She was renowned for her radical approaches to arts pedagogy with a reputation as a mischief-maker at Sunderland where she taught for years, and for being a woman who made space for others in the arts throughout her lifetime. An avid collector, particularly of debris, detritus, discarded objects and clothes, minerals and animal droppings – all traces of life in waste – Madge left a wondrous (or wandrous) archive from her encounters with the Northumbrian landscape and coast. Barring essays by Tom Jennings, there has been little formal engagement with Madge. I interviewed her for Audiovisual Cultures Podcast in 2019, and in 2021 produced a 2-hour episode filled with testimonies of fellow artists and colleagues who had been impacted by Madge’s interest in them (she also collected the living whom she nurtured). I propose to use this opportunity to create a text for and using the WA...

In March 2012 I introduced a screening of Ordet/The Word (dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955) at the Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast. It's all a blur, really, and I can't remember anything to tell you about it. I was becoming very strained, running out of money and being flooded by rejection just months after the high of passing and very quickly graduating with my PhD. The three years of intesnive hard work in that moment felt as if they'd been for nothing. I imagine that was my state of mind when preparing these notes. Today I know that things just are what they are and don't inherently have a purpose.   Ordet intro Carl Theodor Dreyer (b. 1889) of Swedish decent but grew up in a Danish foster home and was adopted by a strict Protestant family. 26yrs after The Passion of Joan of Arc he depicted spirituality even more piously in Ordet/The Word (1955). The film-maker based Ordet on a play by Kaj Munk, which he praised for its ‘astonishing courage’. It tells a tale of...

On the morning of Wednesday 23 November 2011 - the day after my PhD viva voce (big scary conversation with examiners who decide whether you're awarded the degree), and two days after my 27th birthday - I introduced a screening of Tim Burton's short animation Vincent (1982) and Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (dir. Henry Selick, 1993) at the Queen's Film Theatre in Belfast put on especially for school groups. Although the timing was ridiculous, I jumped at the chance to perform this introduction. The Nightmare Before Christmas has always been special to me. It came out shortly after my dad died, and, for all its problems, it was a comfort and a mainstay for me in those early years. I have seen it more times that I can tell you. I know the whole film almost word-for-word, beat-for-beat. Sally the rag doll has been a profound influence. At a major time in my life with such a big absence, it was meaningful to draw my personal and professional lives together, eve...

In May 2012 I introduced a screening of Elles (dir. Malgorzata Szumowska, 2011) at the Queen's Film Theatre in Belfast and led a discussion afterwards. An uncomfortable topic, particularly in a place awash with religious conservatism, the film follows a seasoned journalist played by Juliet Binoche as she works on a story about young women, mostly students, choosing to enter sex work. It was a strange time for me. After months of intensive job hunting post-PhD (graduated December 2011) I had just landed a minimum-wage part-time job in a shop. Oh the relief that something had worked out. I was desperate by this stage, and what I was prepared to do to survive had been very much on my mind.  Marion Campbell who was then QFT's Education & Outreach Officer had me doing quiet few introductions that year. She was looking out for me and I didn't appreciate her enough. I became so wrapped up in the academic career path that I lost sight of the other types of opportunity she opene...

Climate letter challenge Prompt 1: At the top of my mind about climate and ecological change is... deep anxiety that collectively we're not doing enough. There's too much pressure on individuals. We do all have a role to play, but what's within our power is so small compared to the huge corporate polluters and other huge corporations that prop them up and benefit from their polluting. So there's me mithering about getting refills from an inconvenient location that I can't really afford rather than buying things in more plastic bottles that are unlikely to get recycled, or be recycled more than once if they are, but which are fine and affordable. Or being freezing all the time because of the guilt of both polluting the atmostphere with gas or fire smoke, plus the expense. And don't even start me on the green-washing companies are doing. They pander to what's popular and desired and don't actually address the problem. I'm cross about those Boody bras I...