Sue Breakell

Dr Sue Breakell is Archive Director at the University of Brighton Design Archives, and a Principal Research Fellow. She co-leads the Museums, Archives, Exhibitions strand of the University's Centre for Design History. In line with the Design Archives’ principle of research-informed stewardship, her research engages with critical thinking about the nature, meaning and practice of archives, focussing on their use in visual arts contexts and in the history and practice of art and design. With an academic background in English Studies, Archive Studies and the History of Art, Sue worked in archives in national museums and galleries, before joining the University in 2009, bringing her professional practice into an academic context. Those roles gave her extensive experience of working with archives of all sizes and kinds, including cataloguing the papers of Kenneth Clark and other large archives of modern British art and artists at Tate Archive; working as both War Artists Archivist and Museum Archivist at the Imperial War Museum, and as Company Archivist at Marks and Spencer.  Prior to coming to Brighton she was head of Tate Archive.

Sue is interested in interdisciplinary perspectives on visual arts archives in theory and practice, bridging discourses of critical archive studies and other humanities disciplines. Her engagement takes place at the intersection of stewardship, research and creative activities, involving a range of approaches to the notional and physical archive.  In both analogue and digital forms, this work in essence reflects on the place and nature of archives in contemporary culture.  Specialising in visual arts archives, she works collaboratively with scholars, art and design practitioners, collections practitioners and community groups, using a range of approaches. Her work investigates the archive as both a product and a site of creative practice, and looks ‘under the bonnet’ of art and design historical research and asks: what is the archive doing?  To this end, her research is often grounded in the embodied practitioner knowledge generated from the collections with which she has worked, largely focussing on twentieth century British art and design and their contexts, particularly the mid-century.  So for example she has reflected on the archival practices of emigre designers, and on materiality in the encounter with the visual arts archive.  She has particular expertise on the archive and work of the designer FHK Henrion (1914-1990), held at the Design Archives.

Sue is based at the University of Brighton Design Archives and supervises research using archives in art and design history and practice; and on twentieth century British art and design and their contexts, with a particular focus on the mid-century. She supervises Masters and Doctorate projects, and is happy to hear from potential students with complementary interests.