Our New DECR Committee Chair

Introducing Edward Kettleborough, new Chair of the Association for Art History’s Doctoral and Early Career Research (DECR) committee.

The Association For Art History is delighted to welcome Ed Kettleborough as the new Chair of the Doctoral and Early Career Researcher (DECR) committee and network.

Ed is an AHRC-funded PhD student at the University of Bristol. His research focuses upon the artists who emerged from the Royal College of Art in the early 1960s, covering figures including Frank Bowling, Derek Boshier, RB Kitaj, and Pauline Boty. Challenging the dominant understanding of this work as “British Pop Art”, he aims to highlight these artists’ varied responses to the historical convulsions of the mid-century, from the Suez Crisis and end of the British Empire to consumer capitalism and Cold War.

As DECR Chair, Ed aims to help advance the AAH’s commitment to supporting new voices and to the decolonisation and diversification of art history. He also sees the DECR’s role as being one of advocacy, championing the importance of the discipline within and beyond the academy and the museum.

The DECR committee organises events and initiatives for doctoral and early career researchers engaged with arts, art history, visual culture and curating. These include our annual Professional Development Day (for PhD and ECRs), online Global New Voices conference (for new PhD students) and our regular Reading Groups (open to all), which all take place online, as well as the annual Summer Symposium (for late-stage PhD students and ECRs), which takes place in-person at a different venue each year. The committee also shortlists the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Dissertation Prizes and runs the DECR Annual Conference Bursary scheme. The DECR committee is made up of volunteer members who are based around the UK.

If you have any suggestions or comments about what the DECR might cover in future events then please email Ed on: decr@forarthistory.org.uk.