Jo Lansdowne
Director of Research
Research at Watershed means asking questions about what needs to change, and trying to answer those questions by testing things out in practice. We listen carefully to ourselves and others and then share what we learn.
I am a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, leading an action research project to develop new ways of supporting creative technology innovation. I am also a Visiting Professor at UWE Bristol's Digital Cultures Research Centre and a Co-Investigator for Immersive Arts.
My research interests
- I believe that technology describes the collection of ideas, tools, practices and systems which humans use to shape the world around us. Creative technology means that the way we do this is not inevitable, but can be re-imagined.
- I am particularly interested in methodologies that bring people together in collaborative rather than competitive forms of production. This is because knowledge, power and resources are more evenly distributed through caring and critically engaged processes and networks.
- As part of my Visiting Professorship I am currently doing practice based research exploring Whiteness as an individual, structural and planetary process of using up the world. I'm asking how we make visible, and challenge, the ways in which Whiteness monopolises research and development resources. You can read more on why this is important in this article.
- I am also part of the supervisory team (led by Professor Erinma Ochu) for the brilliant Oluwatosin Olufon as they undertake a PhD entitled Preserving African Folktale Heritage through Virtual Reality and Animation: An Immersive Practice-Based Approach to Cultural Preservation.
Email: jo.l@watershed.co.uk
Twitter: @joannalansdowne
Photo by Jon Aitken
