- Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media
- Homelands
About me
Julie Marsh is an artist-filmmaker, practice-based researcher, and educator. Her practice builds upon the notion of "place as apparatus," framing the filmmaking process as a collaborative, site-responsive act. Julie’s work integrates experimental filmmaking techniques with a documentary approach to create filmic representations that ‘perform’ the material, architectural, social, political, and institutional discourses embedded within sites. Her approach emphasises active collaboration with both human and non-human agents to highlight the dynamic, emergent, and relational nature of place.
Her recent projects, Assembly and Moving Pictures, specifically work with diaspora faith communities, exploring the interconnectedness of place, cultural identity and belonging by offering creative agency through film as a tool for self-representation and storytelling. These projects foster connections among associated organisations, stakeholders and the communities themselves, highlighting personal and collective experiences while addressing broader social, cultural, and political issues.
Julie is a researcher at the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) and the research lead for the Arts, Communication, and Culture Research Community at the University of Westminster. She is involved with The Deep Field Project, located at the intersection of contemporary art practice and ecological, environmental, and social justice, and is an active member of HOMELandS (Hub on Migration, Exile, Languages and Spaces) at the University of Westminster. Her research findings have been shared internationally through conferences, journals, screenings, and exhibitions, solidifying her position as a leader in artistic practice-based research.
Teaching
Julie supervises practice-based PhD projects on artists' moving image, documentary film and contemporary artistic practices through innovative methodologies that address ecological and social concerns.
Current PhD researchers include:
- Maud Craigie, Tools for Persuasion: methods of storytelling in UK and US courtrooms
- David Alamouti, Filmmaking at the borders: Improvisation and the ethics of (re)presenting others
- Hope Strickland, Towards a landscape of retrieval as a mode of refusal: Black affect as moving image strategy between the North of England and Jamaica
- Henry Kremples, Cooperation via Contact: Val Plumwood’s Philosophical Animism as an Ontological Framework for Collaborative Performance Dialogues Between ‘Earth Others’
- Stefania Artusi, Mediterranean Piracy as Resistance: A Feminist Countertopography
- Harry Meadows, Reimagining Art for Climate Action: environmental sensing tools for the Anthropocene
- James Snazell, Film Making and Wich Craft as GeoFilm Through Exploring Elemental Salt Emulsions
Julie currently teaches documentary and artist moving image (expanded practices) on the BA in Creative Media Arts, MA in Art and Emerging Technologies and MA in Global Contemporary Art at the University of Westminster. She has also taught at UAL London College of Communication; Central Saint Martins; The Arts University Bournemouth; CAS (Centre for Audiovisual Studies) FAMU in Prague and Aalto University in Finland.
Research
Julie’s work as a practice-based researcher redefines the boundaries of nonfiction filmmaking, investigating the intricate relationship between art, society, and spatial agency. A key innovation in her work is the development of the research methodology "site-integrity" featured in the Journal for Artistic Research, Issue 19 (2019). This approach investigates how camera-motorised devices can 'perform' a site through an ethically and culturally informed lens, creating critical experiences for audiences that open debate and question social spaces. In this methodology, the camera is used as a creature of autonomy, a source of possibility through which site materiality might be found and shared. Julie’s research has been shared internationally through site-specific film screenings, conferences, peer-reviewed journals, and exhibitions.
Recent research and arts grants include:
- Scaffolding Research Fund, University of Westminster (2024)
- Arts Council England for 'Faith Place and Migration' at Staffordshire Street Gallery (2024)
- UK Research and Innovation Quality-related Research Funding ([UKRI] QR) for 'Virtual Assembly' (2023)
- Royal Institute for British Architects (RIBA) 2022 Research Grant for 'Moving Pictures; reusing cinemas as places of worship'
- V&A Applied Arts Pavilion Special Project Venice Biennale Fund (2021)
- PILOT (Practical and Innovative Live Outcomes Testing) research funding scheme, University of Westminster (2020) for 'Assembly' project.
- Inter Faith Network UK grant (2019) for Assembly project.
Publications
For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.