Michael Bowdidge
Co-PhD Programme Leader
Admissions Leader and PGR Doctoral Training
Michael Bowdidge, PhD, is an artist who works with found objects, images and sound. He received his undergraduate degree in Fine Art from Middlesex Polytechnic in 1989, and completed his doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh in 2012. Michael works in a variety of educational contexts, which include academic and community settings. All of these activities enrich his teaching practice, and by extension, his creative output – as, for him, these two areas of endeavour are fundamentally intertwined.
Ren Loren Britton
Accessibility Friend and Trans*Feminist Technical Support
Ren Loren Britton is a white trans* interdisciplinary artist and researcher tuning with practices of critical pedagogy, trans*feministtechnoscience and disability justice. Playing with the queer potential of undoing norms they practice joyful accountability to matters of collaboration, accessibility, Black feminisms, instability and trans*(positioning + gendering)politics. They love slugs, slowness, reading, repetition, non-linearity and experimenting.
Cella
Transart Co-founder and Director
An international artist, Cella has exhibited photographs at the Berlin Biennale, Lisbon Architectural Triennale, Tallinn Print Triennale, Rochester Museum of Fine Art, Melbourne Photo Biennale, Ruhr Biennale and Santorini Biennale. Cella holds an MFA degree and studied at Washington Square Institute for Psychoanalytic Training in New York, l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris and l’Université Paris-Sorbonne and independently with Nicholas Nixon and Robert Frank.
Syowia Kyambi
MFA Programme Leader
Syowia Kyambi is a mixed media artist, who enjoys performing characters within her performance installations to tell stories, an alternative layered narrative about history in an attempt to disrupt mono-cultural violence. The connection between the psyche, history and the entanglement that exists within non-stagnant identities is ever present in her creative process. Her practice probes issues of race, perception, hierarchical systems, gender studies and body memory. Based in Nairobi and of Kenyan and German origin, Syowia Kyambi has received commissions by the Kenya Institute of Administration, the National Museum of Kenya and the Art 4 Action Foundation in Kenya.
Laurie Anne Roark
Projects Coordinator
Laurie Anne Roark is an archivist, editor, and arts worker. Interested in intersections of material culture and poetry, her research engages practices of collecting, artistic networks, and archival theory. Laurie comes to Transart as Projects Coordinator with attention to practices of organization and systems management.
Abi Tariq
Communications Director
Abi Tariq is an artist and cultural worker born in Karachi and based in Paris. Tariq holds a Masters of Fine Art from Transart Institute (Berlin/NY), a Bachelor of Fine Art from Parsons Paris (now Paris College of Art), and a Pakistani passport! Since 2023 they've taken on the role of Communications Director at Transart Institute.
Ladan Yalzadeh
Community and Wellness Leader
Ladan is an artist and a mindfulness and stress-release coach focused on healing and restoration. She helps individuals and communities find the resources within themselves to process stress, find resilience and reconnect with their inherent joy and wellbeing.
Steve Dutton
Co-PhD Programme Leader
Admissions and Partnership Development
Steve Dutton is an artist, researcher and curator who works on both collaborative and individual projects. He is developing a new body work under the working title of “industry” which is including drawings, sound works, animations, objects and texts. His work is difficult to classify, as it moves between various media, materials, processes and forms.
