Staff Profile
Dr Cole Robertson
Before joining Buckinghamshire New University in 2024, I worked as a lecturer and artist, specialising in photography’s expanded field. I previously lectured at the University of Roehampton, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Illinois Chicago, and the College of DuPage.
I earned my practice led Fine Art PhD at the Royal College of Art, and also have an MFA from Columbia College Chicago, a BFA from Arizona State University, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Art & Design Education from the Royal College of Art. My specialist area of research deals with the confluence of embodied thought, metaphor theory, and image theory, applying vernacular metaphoric constructs to visual imagery. My artistic practice takes photographic visuality as its subject, resulting in installations, sculpture, prints, animations, and video work.
I am a member of the College Art Association and the Society for Photographic Education.
My specialist knowledge has led me to work with institutions such as the City of Chicago, the American National Endowment for the Arts, Kingston Museum, and Southwark Park Galleries on exhibitions of my own work and programming I’ve curated. I’ve presented my research at Hong Kong Baptist University, the School for Advanced Studies, Lucca, the University of Leeds, the University of Oxford, and Anglo-American University, Prague.
My career highlight so far is presenting my research at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris as part of Photographica.