- Room 111, Scott Building, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA
- +44 1752 585267
- ines.rae@plymouth.ac.uk

Profiles
Ms Ines Rae
Lecturer in Media Arts
School of Art, Design and Architecture (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business)
Biography
Biography
Lecturer in Creative Media (Photography)
Qualifications
MA Social History of Art, University of Leeds
BA Fine Art, Brighton Polytechnic
Professional membership
Member of the Higher Education Academy
Roles on external bodies
2015-19 External Examiner, BA Photojournalism, Southampton Solent University
Teaching
Teaching
Teaching interests
Teaching and research is in the area of contemporary photographic practice. I have a particular interest in the role of women within representation.
Ines contributes to the BA(Hons) Media Arts and BA(Hons) Creative Media programmes in the areas of Collaborative Practice, Documentary and contributes to the Critical Theory programme and Dissertation Supervision.
She has also supervised postgraduate students with interests in feminist art practice, class cultures and documentary photography practices.
Staff serving as external examiners
External Examiner for BA(Hons)Photojournalism at Southampton Solent University 2015-2019
Research
Research
Research interests
Awarded Arts Council England funding from Developing your Creative Practice scheme May 2021 for Portrait of a Woman
Current work in progress is Portrait of a Woman. At my mothers death I inherited photographs and letters which pointed to an interesting family history. At the work’s centre are the memories of life in Basque Spain in the 1930s embedded in particular stories passed down to me by my mother. There is a potential detective story here as my mother is invisible in this history because she is illegitimate.
Trained in Fine Art, Rae’s work uses photography and text to explore representation, femininity, consumer culture and the everyday.
Rae's research aims to analyse the labour of femininity in a contemporary photographic culture where this still remains largely invisible. A Real Work of Art uses a model of image-making which is largely dialogic and interactive in its involvement of participants. This piece established a lot of the groundwork for subsequent research, especially in terms of methodology. central to this is the relationship between photographer and subject. A Real Work of Art explores the business of surface appearances through portraits of women whose job it is to crete a facade. The work visually describes a number of retail sites as consisting of both consumption and production.
Publications include Kurl up n Dye, a monograph published by Wild Pansy Press with an introduction by Simon Grennan and incorporating photographs and typography investigating the vernacular in British high street culture. A feature on the book was recently on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour. The research has led to a number of conference papers and articles exploring the photographic image in terms of the vernacular, cultural anthropology and material culture.
Research degrees awarded to supervised students
2008 MA by Research, Sean Cousin Pentimento: A re-evaluation of the integral polaroid
Grants & contracts
2021 Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice for Portrait of a Woman £10,000
2008 Sandbox Sabbatical (internal Uclan award) £7858
2007 Arts Council England £11482 for In-between Spaces
2005 Arts Council England £9043 for Settling In
2005 Arts and Humanities Research Council, Small Grants in the Creative and Performing Arts £5000
2001 Arts and Humanities Research Council, Small Grants in the Creative and Performing Arts £5000
Creative practice & artistic projects
Research Projects
A Portrait of a Woman/Retrato de mujer - work in progress
The project takes its name from a photograph of an unknown woman.
I inherited photographs and letters which pointed to an interesting family history
At the work’s centre are the memories of life in Basque Spain in the 1930s embedded in particular stories passed down to me by my mother. There is a potential detective story here as my mother is invisible in this history because she is illegitimate.
The Grammar of GlamourRemembering the City; On memory, experience and the urban landscape
My interest in memory work has developed from a smallproject called ‘Memory City’. The project investigates the relationshipsbetween personal memory, everyday experience and public space. Its focus is on narratives of security andinsecurity, anxiety and confidence, and belonging and alienation in the urbanlandscape. Using a sequence of themed workshops the project focuses on: thepleasures, risks and dangers of city life; mobility and the cosmopolitan city;and cultural landscapes of the city. The aim is to see how people use theirmemories to construct their understandings of public space in the present.
Funded by Sandbox/Uclan 2009.
With Claire Corrin and Daniella Watson ‘Inbetween Spaces’ Funded by Arts Council England (£13,000) Completed 2007 (Lead Applicant: Rae)
Inbetween Spaces (2007), explores ideas of marginality on several billboard sites around Manchester and Salford. The bus tour explored the marginal and overlooked in the urban fabric through the rehearsed performance of a tour guide.
With Simon Grennan and Alan Ward ‘Kurl up n Dye; an exploration of the vernacular in British high street culture’ Funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council (£5000) and UCLan (match funding) Completed November 2006 (Lead Applicant: Rae)
In Kurl up n Dye there is a nod to the motifs and pictorial strategies from which other photographers work: There is a long tradition in using photography to document and explore aspects of British popular culture and sometimes with a nostalgia for disappearing worlds. But there is a point to be made here about the stories that don’t get told, or that need a differently skewed vision. Perhaps as Diane Arbus felt when she made the image of an interior of a barber shop there is always another way of seeing a place.
The shop names and typefaces signal economic status,class and taste beyond the frame. The humour in the shop names is self-directed, belonging entirely to the independent trader – to the lower rent, non-corporate, “other mainstream” undertaste that laughs at the aspiring by making deprecating laughter part of the pleasure of aspiration itself. The people and places in Kurl up n Dye understand the operation of glamour’s oxymoron in their lives, making use of the knife-edge between image and reality.
In 'Kurl up 'n' Dye', I think we are squarely in the sights of glamour.Or perhaps, Rae has her sights set on glamour. Either way, we seem more than anything to be looking down the barrel of a gun, which is curious, seeing as the images in ''Kurl up 'n' Dye' ' have been made within the pleasure industry,at the salon. Nobody seems to be having much fun in the peopled interiors that contribute to the work. The salon facades also appear either dreary or shabby.The conventions of documentary photography are assaulted by Rae in 'Kurl up 'n'Dye', not discarded or ignored, so that the private views, the intimate views and the set-up images still seem motivated by a desire to reveal social relationships…
Simon Grennan in Kurl up n Dye 2006
With Jo Lansley, Manchester Metropolitan University ‘Settling In’ Funded by Arts Council England (£11,000) Completed April 2006 (Lead Applicant: Rae)
Settling In explores ideas of home and performativity.Using a tradition of artist-led initiatives the research aimed to reassess the diversity of artistic practice funded by the Arts Council in Manchester and to introduce new artists and work to the region, particularly female practitioners. The exhibition was intended as a comment on the corporate extravaganza that is the British Art Show.
Taking home as it’s starting point Settling In explores how we move within and experience this most intimate of spaces – the home becomes a metaphor for the creative process, a locus for female activity, as well as a place of secrets and self, of rituals and routine.
Publications
Publications
Rae, I. (2009) ‘Shear Class: a visual ethnography of the British hair salon’ in X-cp Streetnotes www.xcp.bfn.org/streetnotes.html
Rae, I (2013) Memory-Images in Momchedjikova ,B, ed, (2013) Captured by the City: New Perspectives in Urban Culture Studies, Cambridge Scholars Publishing 978-1443842891
Rae, I. & Grennan, S. (2006) Kurl up n Dye, Leeds, Wild Pansy Press
Rae I (2013)Remembering the City-Memory Images in Momchedjikova, B (ed) 2013 Captured by the City : Perspectives in Urban Culture Studies, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge UK
Rae, I. (2008) ‘Some will pay (for what others will pay to avoid): Vernacular typography and the irreverence of popular culture’ in F. Hackney, J. Glynne & V. Minton, eds, Networks of Design, Brown Walker Press
Exhibition Catalogues
Corrin, C., Rae, I., Watson, D. (2007) Inbetween Spaces, Manchester, Look07/Redeye
ISBN 978 1 901922 63 2
Lansley, J., Rae, I., Tormey, J. (2006) Settling In, Arts Council England
ISBN 9781901922 65 3
Beech, D. & Rae, I. (2003) A Real Work of Art, Lancaster, Folly Gallery
ISBN 1 901922 49 9
Solo Exhibitions
2013 Memory City, Plymouth University
2006 Kurl up n Dye, Cube, Manchester
2003 A Real Work of Art, Folly Gallery, Lancaster
2000 Perm-u-tations, Installation as part of YOTA, New Image Salon, Preston
1999 Remote Imago-Lucis Gallery, Porto, Portugal and Culture House, Estarreja, Portugal
Sponsored by The British Council, Lisbon
1996 Ideal Home, Site Gallery, Sheffield
Sponsored by CPL, Yorkshire and Humberside Arts
1994 Spaces of Difference/Memories of Place Lanchester Gallery, Coventry
Sponsored by Geonex UK. Catalogue essay by Griselda Pollock
1993 Project 10 00 22 Selen-Oldenstrand, Stockholm
1993 Voices of Fury, Pavilion Photography Centre, Leeds
Group Exhibitions
2016 Brighton Photo Biennial Fringe Festival, Lock In Gallery, Brighton photofringe.org
2016 Plymouth Art Weekender September
2014 Karst Open Studios, Plymouth
2013 Textually Active 2, Athenaeum, Plymouth
2007 Inbetween Spaces Billboard bus tour , Cube Manchester
2006 Settling In, 338 Great Western St, Manchester
2005 Mind Where You Look, Gallery Oldham
2004 Joy, International 3, Manchester
2003 Thermo 03, The Lowry, Manchester
2003 PureScreen 2 at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
2001 Venture Year of the Artist Celebration, BBC Manchester
2001 AnOtherPlace, Storey Gallery, Lancaster
2000 Regional Launch of Year of the Artist, North West
National Launch of Year of the Artist,The Lux, Hoxton Square
1999 Travel Bag, University Of Central Lancashire Research Centre, Preston
1997 Domus:North and South, Art Gallery Too: a nomadic artspace for NEW ART
Private residencies in York and London
1997 I dont want to play house, Zone Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
1995 Imagining the unimaginable, Pankhurst Centre, Manchester
1994 Indications, Impressions Gallery, York Commissioned by Impressions
1993 Absent Bodies/ Present Lives, Leeds City Art Gallery Catalogue available
1992 BT New Contemporaries Manchester, Belfast, ICA London.
Personal
Personal
Reports & invited lectures
2018 Visual cultures, consumerism and the grammar of glamour, Sociology Research Seminar Series at Plymouth University, Feb 21 2018
2018 Undertaking Effective Community Engagement Through Community-Led Research: The Maker Memories Project, Guildhall, Plymouth
2017 (Our) Generations and (Expanded) Geographies: Living Feminist Lives for A Feminist Space at Leeds; Looking back to Think forward December 16-17 2017, University of Leeds
2012 The Grammar of Glamour, Helsinki Photomedia Conference, Aalto University
2010 Memory City; Remembering the City. MAPACA 2010, Alexandria VA. Urban Culture Panel
2009 Shear Class; an ethnographic study of the British hair salon. MAPACA , Boston. Urban Culture Panel
2008 Some will pay (for what others will pay to avoid): Vernacular typography and the irreverence of popular culture. Networks of Design, University College, Falmouth
2008 Kurl up n Dye; the vernacular in British High Street culture. The Street, University of California at Irvine
2006 Towards an Ethics of Gnerosity in Contemporary Photographic Practice. North West Art and Design Research Seminar, Liverpool John Moores University
2004 AHRB and A Real Work of Art; Practice as Research. North West Art and Design Research Seminar, Cumbria Institute of the Arts, Carlisle.
Conferences organised
Mapping; The Land/Water Summer Symposium July 2013
Other academic activities
2012-19 Faculty of Arts and Humanities Ethics Committee, Plymouth University
Links
Interview on Radio 4 Womans Hour