Natanya Mark
Research title: What are the Possibilities and Limitations for Co-creation in Qualitative Urban Research? Extending participation ‘after’ co-creation methodological timeframes in Glasgow and London.
Research summary
My PhD research considers grassroots creative spaces as spaces of hope. In my research I pay close attention, through an urban ethnographic methodology attuned to the emergent present, to the ways in which DIY creative spaces act out possible futures in the present, and how projects work with radical hope (Lear 2006) and with failure endemic to such efforts.
This collaborative and sensorially grounded approach stems in part from my experience instigating a project called Local Senses; for six years we collaborated as a group of people with varying levels of vision to respond to the experience of navigating outdoor urban environments together in London. This research also draws on my work as co-director of F.A.T. Studio C.I.C. where I co-founded a DIY creative space (2021-2023) based in a meanwhile site on the Old Kent Road in South East London.
I completed my SGSSS-funded Masters of Research in Sociology at the University of Glasgow with Distinction (2025). I hold an MA in Visual Communication from the Royal College of Art (2018) and a First Class BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge (2015).
Supervisors
Grants
- Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS / UKRI) PhD Scholarship 2025 - 2029
- Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS / UKRI) Masters of Research Scholarship 2024 - 2025
Conferences
- Pipe Dreams: Festival of Community; Ethnografilm Festival 2026, Paris
- Pipe Dreams: Festival of Community; Visualista Film Festival 2025, The International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA), South Korea
Teaching
Guest Teaching
- "Palace of Varieties" with F.A.T. Studio, BA Illustration, Camberwell College of Arts, UAL, London 2022 & 2023
- F.A.T. Studio x UCA Epsom, BA Illustration, UCA Epsom, London 2022
- United Voices X Justice4Grenfell, Royal College of Art, London 2018
Invited Talks and Lectures
- Practitioner Talk and Workshop, MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures, London College of Communications, UAL, London 2023
- Practitioner Talk, MA Fashion, Academy of Art, Netherlands 2022
- Practitioner Talk, MA Fashion, HKU, Netherlands 2022
- Curating Context and Agency, MFA Curation, Goldsmiths University of London 2021
- Decolonising the Instution panel member, Royal College of Art, London 2019
