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Staff Profile

Dr Emma Coffield

Lecturer

  • Email: emma.coffield@ncl.ac.uk
  • Address: 2.44 Windsor Court
    School of Arts and Cultures
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    Tyne and Wear
    NE1 7RU
Background

Background

Dr Emma Coffield is a Lecturer in the School of Arts and Cultures (SACS) and the current Degree Programme Director (DPD) for the Curating Art, Museum Studies and Global Heritage Management Postgraduate programmes. She has an AHRC sponsored PhD in Museum Studies, an MA in Art Museum and Gallery Education (both Newcastle University) and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art (Painting and Printmaking) from the Glasgow School of Art.


Emma is internationally recognised for her collaborative work, based at the intersection of contemporary grassroots artistic practice, the sociology of work in the cultural and creative industries, urban studies and cultural policy. For over 15 years she has worked with self-organised, artist-run/led and D.I.Y. initiatives across the UK, as well as urban planners, designers, architects, and local and national policy-makers. At present, this work concentrates on the impact of 'meanwhile' or interim sites as (re)used by artists and art workers, and particularly the benefits, limitations and working conditions afforded through temporary use. A scoping report into meanwhile studio use in Scotland is due in September 2026, funded by Creative Scotland.


To date, Emma has led or co-led 10 collaborative, transdisciplinary projects bringing together artists, art workers, academics and policy-makers in order to foster co-designed, long-term urban futures. She has shared this work via public talks, lectures, a variety of written outputs (including freely available reports, creative writing and academic articles) and her work has gone on to inform cultural policy in the UK and beyond, including the government's new High Street Strategy. Emma is also an Arrow Advisor, where she supports small arts organisations to access free innovation support (Arrow | Newcastle Innovations | Newcastle University).


Emma also has a keen interest in notions of ‘employability’ in the cultural and creative industries, and the impact of this discourse on students’ experiences of teaching and learning within Higher Education.


Working groups:

Emma convenes the Meanwhile Space Research Cluster (https://research.ncl.ac.uk/meanwhilespace/) and is part of the 'Collaborate' Steering Group with colleagues from the NewBridge Project.


Additional roles and responsibilities:

  • MCH Impact Lead (2026 - present)
  • SACS Employability and Enterprise Lead(2019-2022)
  • SACS Athena Swan committee (2017-18)
  • Co-convenor of the Cultural Significance of Place Faculty Research Group (2012-18)


Research

Research outline


Emma is internationally recognised for her collaborative work, based at the intersection of contemporary grassroots artistic practice, the sociology of work in the cultural and creative industries, urban studies and cultural policy. Since 2010, she has worked with self-organised, artist-run/led and D.I.Y. initiatives across the UK, as well as urban planners, designers, architects, and local and national policy-makers.


At present, this work concentrates on the impact of 'meanwhile' or interim sites as (re)used by artists and art workers, and particularly the benefits, limitations and working conditions afforded through temporary use. A scoping report into meanwhile studio use in Scotland is due in September 2026, funded by Creative Scotland. You can find Emma's previous work into meanwhile use in the North-East of England, alongside colleagues including Dr Paul Richter, David Butler, Rebecca Prescott, and Rebecca Huggan, here: More Than Meanwhile – A collaborative project exploring long-term futures for artist-led spaces and workspaces in the North East of England


To date, Emma has led or co-led 10 collaborative, transdisciplinary projects bringing together artists, art workers, academics and policy-makers in order to foster co-designed, long-term urban futures. Much of this work is impact and/or knowledge-exchange based, alongside traditional research projects, and has been shared via public talks, lectures and a variety of written outputs including freely available reports, creative writing and academic articles. Emma's work has informed cultural policy in the UK and beyond, including the government's new High Street Strategy. Emma is an Arrow Advisor, where she supports small arts organisations to access free innovation support (Arrow | Newcastle Innovations | Newcastle University).


Emma also has a keen interest in notions of ‘employability’ in the cultural and creative industries and the impact of this discourse on students’ experiences of teaching and learning within Higher Education. For a number of years, she has worked with Dr Katie Markham and others to understand how teaching for employability is experienced by students and recent graduates.



Research projects

PI - Understanding the Impact of Meanwhile Spaces on the Ecology of Artists' Studios in Scotland: A Scoping Review (£24,218). Funded by Creative Scotland. Feb-June 2026 with Dr Paul Richter. Research Assistants: Katee Woods and Gareth McMurchy.

Co-I - Analysing hyperlocal impacts of artistic/cultural organisations: The case of The NewBridge Project (£10,000) Funded by the School Challenge Based Fund (SCBRF), Newcastle University Business School. April-June 2024 with Dr Paul Richter, Prof Alison Stenning and The NewBridge Project. Research Assistant: Kitty McKay Listening and Learning, A Social Impact Report - The NewBridge Project

Co-I - Developing and Understanding The Environment Within Which Creative Initiatives Can Flourish (£165,000) UK Government Strategic Prosperity Fund. May 2023-May 2025 with Dr Rebecca Prescott, Dr Zander Wilson and project partners Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council, the National Trust, Tyne and Wear Building Preservation Trust, Newcastle University and Northumbria University. https://www.flourishgateshead.com/

PI - Engaging the Grassroots Art Sector with the Clayton Street Corridor (£15,334.90) Funded by Newcastle City Council. March 2022-December 2022 with Dr Paul Richter, Dr Rebecca Prescott, David Butler, Dr Loes Veldpaus, Prof Venda Pollock, Andrew Rothwell, Ed Banks, Rebecca Huggan, Tom Hopkin, Lee Etherington, Nadia Iftkhar. Research Assistants: Hannah Marsden and Daniel Newberry Making the Clayton Street Corridor

PI - Re-thinking employability during COVID-19: Exploring graduate outcomes and experiences in the museum, gallery and heritage sector (£1,364) SACS Funded. March 2020-December 2020 with Dr Katie Markham (PI) and Jess Crossby (Co-I).

PI - Beyond Employability: Enabling Professional Cultural Identities (£9,506). SACS funded, April 2018 - July 2019. Research Assistants: Jess Crossby, Cecilia Stenbom, and Maria Athanasiou.

RA - Artist Rooms Interfaces (£2,206) SSRF funded with Professor Christopher Whitehead. June 2015 - May 2016. 



Impact, engagement and knowledge-exchange

Co-I - Embedding organisational capacity to routinely report social, economic, and community impact at The NewBridge Project (£1,380) Funded by the NUBS School Impact Fund. May - June 2026 with Dr Paul Richter and Dr Julia Heslop.

PI - Assessing the impact of sustained engagement: Does brokering ‘meeting space’ between grassroots arts and local government work? (£2,447) Funded by the School of Arts and Cultures (SACS) School Impact Fund. January-June 2025 with Dr Paul Richter, Dr Julia Heslop and The NewBridge Project.

Co-I - Engaging grassroots arts practitioners with the North of Tyne Cultural and Creative Zones (CCZs) (£13,351) Funded by QR Policy Support Fund. Jan 2023-June 2024 with Rachel Pattinson and Dr Loes Veldpaus. Research Assistant: Daniel Newberry. Artists: Kitty McKay and Jenny McNamara.

PI - More Than Meanwhile Collaboration (£5,000). ESRC IAA, October 2020 - March 2021 with Dr Paul Richter, Rebecca Huggan, David Butler, Dr Rebecca Prescott, and The NewBridge Project. Research Assistant: Dr Alix Ferrer-Yulfo

Co-I - Mapping Gateshead (£7,598.85). ESRC IAA, November 2020 - March 2021 with Dr Rebecca Prescott, Dr Alexander Wilson, Gateshead Council and GT3 Architects. https://www.flourishgateshead.com/work-1/mappinggateshead

PI - More Than Meanwhile Spaces II (£11,509.28). ESRC IAA, April 2019 - March 2020 with Dr Paul Richter, Rebecca Huggan, David Butler, Dr Edward Wainwright, Dr Rebecca Prescott, The NewBridge Project and Newcastle City Council. Research Assistants: Dan Goodman and Julie Monroe https://morethanmeanwhile.wordpress.com/mtms-ii/

PI - More Than Meanwhile Spaces: Long-Term Business Models for Artists in the City (£5,075). ESRC IAA, March 2018-March 2019 with Dr Paul Richter, Rebecca Huggan, David Butler, Dr Edward Wainwright, Dr Rebecca Prescott and The NewBridge Project. Research Assistant: Dr Katie Markham https://morethanmeanwhile.wordpress.com/mtms-i/



Exhibitions

Paths Across Waters: Lost Stories of Tyneside and the Caribbean (2017) - An exhibition and event series designed and curated in collaboration with Dr Vanessa Mongey (History Classics and Archaeology) and Old Low Light Heritage Centre as part of Being Human, the UK's only national festival of the humanities. 

Newcastle City Futures: People Place Change (2015) - A multi-media exhibition and events series with colleagues Prof. Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Anne Fry, Dhruv Sookhoo and David Mitchell (School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape) that explored built and unbuilt heritage in Newcastle/Gateshead in the post 1940s up to the present. Winner of the Royal Town Planning Institutes 'Chair's Award' in 2015. The project also informed the report Newcastle City Futures 2065: Anchoring Universities in Cities through Urban Foresight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhsNsS4iHZU



Public talks and conferences

Meanwhile Space Ecologies (DCA, Dundee 19th March 2026)

Working Together: Supporting Partnership and Innovation Opportunities in HaSS (Newcastle University 18th March 2026)

Alter Places Final Event, Keynote (Station Gare de Mines, Paris, 24-26th April 2025)

Have Some Imagination: Towards a Manifesto for Arts Education (BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead 7th February 2025)

Creative Spaces (with the Guild of Media Arts and York Creatives, York, 18th July 2024)

ARIs in Spaces and Places, part of the research network on Artist-Run Initiatives in Britain funded by the British Art Network (University of Glasgow, 29th November 2023)

MCH Engagement and Impact (Newcastle University, 20th January 2023)

Newcastle University Enterprise Academy (Newcastle University, 24th November 2022)

kNOw One Place, Creative Placemaking Forum (The Stove Network, Dumfries, 22-23rd September 2022)

Space: Physical and Conversational - Creative Placemaking Digital Programme (The Stove Network, Dumfries, 4th September 2022)

Re-thinking Temporary, Pop-Up and Meanwhile Spaces, Creative Fuse (Northumbria University, 15th September 2022)

Making Space / Keeping Space: an honest exchange on how to make adaptive reuse for culture happen (Newcastle University, OpenHeritage at Pop Recs, Sunderland, 2022)

Wor Culture: Re-thinking the High Street - What Role for Arts and Culture? (Newcastle University, 2021)

The Cultural and Creative Industries Pathways Beyond Economic Growth seminar series [Discussant] (2021)

Wor Culture: Freelancing [chair] (Newcastle University, 2020)

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About The Artist-Led (Exhibition Research Lab Symposium, Liverpool School of Art and Design, Liverpool 2020)

Interdisciplinary Conversations Around Making (Newcastle University, 2019)

PhD Our Futures. What Next Career Stories (Newcastle University, 2018)

Thresholds Symposium (University of York, 2017)

Artists and the City [Chair] Part of a-n's 'Assembly' events (Cobalt Studios, Newcastle, 2017)

NICAP work in progress with Dr Ed Wainwright (Newcastle University, 2017)

Heritage and Brexit’ (London, March 2017)

Cultural Production: Diversity, Equality and Exclusion (Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh 2016)

Networks in the Global World (St. Petersburg, Russia 2016)

PGR Student Conference [Keynote] (Newcastle University 2016)

Exhibition/Non-exhibition: Stretched Out (hosted by Valand Academy at the University of Gothenburg, as part of the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2015)

DOUBLE DARE: The Ethos and Practice of DIY Culture [Chair] (BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead 2015)



Teaching

Current teaching

Emma primarily teaches on postgraduate modules associated with the MA programmes in Curating Art, Museum Studies and Global Heritage Management, as well as teaching in Fine Art, including:

  • MCH8611 Contemporary Curating: Ethics, Sites, Histories
  • MCH8551 Curating Art in the Gallery
  • FIN8019 Exhibiting Art
  • MCH8502 Management Practices in Museums, Galleries and Heritage Sites
  • MCH8503 Understanding Objects, Collections and Stories
  • MCH8516 Short Placement
  • MCH8599/FIN8018 Research Dissertation 
  • MCH8600 25 Day Placement 


Emma supervises postgraduate dissertations in Media and Public Relations (MCH8199), undergraduate dissertations in Journalism and Media (MCH3072), Media (3073) and Digital Cultures (3005), and contributes to teaching in the Design Studio for the MA in Urban Design (ARC8115).


PhD Supervision

Emma currently supervises three PhD students and has particular expertise in creative practice approaches as well as applications that foreground artist-run/led initiatives, meanwhile and temporary use, and cultural policy as this intersects with artistic practice.

  • Fiona Robertson (Newcastle University) with Prof. Rhiannon Mason
  • Kat Bevan (Northumbria University) with Dr Anna Goulding and Professor Tim Rapley
  • Kiki Claxton (Newcastle University) with Dr Fiona Anderson, Emma Hawthorne and Richard Huzzey.


Emma has supervised the following PhD students to completion:

  • Dr Daniel Goodman (Thesis title: System Gallery: What's the Point?) with David Butler and Dr Paul Richter.


Awards

Emma completed the Newcastle Teaching Award in 2019 and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.


Previous teaching

In the past, Emma led the MA in Art Museum and Gallery Studies, and contributed broadly to teaching across the Art Museum and Gallery, Museum Studies and Heritage Studies MA degree programmes then offered by Media, Culture, Heritage (MCH), including:

  • MCH8501 - Understanding Challenges
  • MCH8504 - Caring for Collections
  • MCH8599 - Research Dissertation 
  • MCH600 - Professional Practice and Research
  • MCH601 - Vocationally Orientated Project
  • MCH8551 - Working on a Project: Art Museum and Gallery Studies
  • MCH8502 - Management Practices
  • MCH8516 - Museum, Gallery, Heritage Practice
  • Art Museum and Gallery Education 1
  • Art Museums and Gallery Education 2
  • ICS8005 - Art Curatorship 1: Working with histories, objects and agendas
  • ICS8006 - Art Curatorship 2: Exhibitions and exhibiting


Emma has previously contributed to undergraduate supervision and teaching in Art History, the Showcase OFFSITE module offered by HaSS for creative practice PhD researchers, the PARTNERS Summer School and she co-designed the ICCHS MA e-learning programme.


Exhibitions

Emma supported students to produce the following public exhibitions:

  • The Possibility Of... (Laing Art Gallery, 2016)
  • S[he] (Laing Art Gallery, 2017)
  • Headspace (Laing Art Gallery, 2018)
  • Shifting Styles (The Hatton Gallery, 2020)


Publications