I am a writer and an art critic, living and working in London, and a regular contributor to the UK-based journal Art Monthly. I mainly write on issues pertaining to performance, video and installation art. I've also hosted a weekly radio programme, titled Nature Calls: Animals in Visual Culture on Resonance 104.4 FM, London's arts radio station.
My educational background is in art and philosophy. I hold a degree in BA Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, and, in 2003, I completed an MA in Aesthetics and Art Theory in the Department of Philosophy at Middlesex University, London.
Between 2003 and 2008 I taught Critical Studies and Photographic Studies at Norwich School of Art and Design (now Norwich University College of the Arts), and Contemporary Critical Studies in the Department of Art at Goldsmiths. Modules taught and developed include: 'Context and Intervention', 'Space and Performativity', 'Performance Strategies: From Culture as Sign to Culture as Process' and 'Dissertation Writing Skills for Art Students', as well as individual lectures on 'Gender Performatives', 'Art and Autobiography', 'Animal Performances', 'Introduction to Barthes', and 'Photo-graphy: Where Image Meets Text'. I currently teach Critical Practice and Contextual Studies at Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design, London Metropolitan University. I have taught courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and have several years of experience guiding students succesfully through their dissertation projects.
Since 2007 I have been studying for a PhD in Humanities and Cultural Studies at the London Consortium. My current research centres on the interface between animal studies and 20th Century aesthetics. The title of my PhD is: ‘The Sublime Animal: Contemporary Art and the Animal Aesthetic’. My research explores the way in which non-human animals present a particular problem to and for aesthetics. In my writing I discuss a variety of contemporary artworks as well as the work of recent philosophers, from Theodor Adorno, to Giorgio Agamben, to Jacques Derrida.
Rikke Hansen
