Alice Chandler is an artist and researcher currently undertaking a collaborative doctoral award between the University of Leeds and Yorkshire Visual Arts Network (YVAN – part of CVAN). Chandler’s research explores themes relating to value, impact and sustainability in artist networks. It will build on YVAN’s current research and partnerships to understand the nature of artist networks in Yorkshire and how different types of arts networks affect arts practice and production. It seeks to explore wider practical implications; how visual art organisations and early career artists in Yorkshire could collaborate to develop sustainable, long term infrastructures of support. Prior to starting her PhD, Alice worked for Leeds based arts and heritage organisation Sunny Bank Mills. She has an MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from the University of Leeds, and a BA in Sculpture from the University of Edinburgh.
As an artist, her practice is informed by the intersection between art, craft and design. By learning about and utilising various craft processes, she creates series of works that build narrative and interrogate our relationship with the domestic and wearable. She is interested in object and material networks that contain layered histories, etymologies, narratives, myths, and meaning, and often draws from the material culture and history of her hometown of Leeds and wider Yorkshire region through both archival exploration and everyday experiences.
