Sarah Houghton Portrait

Ms Sarah Houghton

Principal Lecturer

Sarah.Houghton@port.ac.uk

Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries School of Architecture, Art and Design

Biography

I am currently the course leader of the BA(Hons) Graphic Design where I have been a lecturer since 1997.  I hold a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design and was awarded a scholarship to study for my MA in Digital Media where my focus was around the creative and appropriate use of online learning environments specifically for art and design students. 

I have worked as both a print and web designer in industry and as a freelancer. I have been a visiting tutor at Kingston University, Southampton Solent University and summer schools at Central Saint Martins. 

I aim to utilise and develop the creative use of interactive digital technology within design education.  

Research interests

I have previously been employed as a research associate on a European funded project LEDA (Learning environments for a Digital Academy) which was set up to define, develop and test a networked system and the underlying pedagogical procedures to facilitate and promote active learning experiences for international centred postgraduate education. The project involved a consortium of academic institutes and a software company: The 窪蹋勛圖, UK; The Merz Akademie, Germany; The Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland, The Utrecht School of the Arts, and Creative Online Development, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Other research collaborations include Carrion Culture under the remit - "The duality of culture lies in its position as both creation and creator. The banality of culture lies in its position as both spectacle and consumer".

Projects included:

  • "The Politic of Time" - published by the 窪蹋勛圖. Exhibited at Mainz Mini Presse, Germany
  • " Global and Local" Exhibited at Chaumont Poster Festival, Chaumont France
  • " Virus - Transference" - in collaboration with Merz Akademie, Germany Exhibited at Chaumont Poster Festival, Chaumont France
  • "Spectacular Culture" Box set of posters, Exhibited at the Festival dAffiche, Chaumont, France Next Generation Exhibition, Nagoga Design Centre, Japan

Previous research investigations were into the implicit and explicit structures and codes we employ to decipher meaning, and the variables attached to interpretation, in particular the impact on transmission methods by changing technologies.

This has moved on and is now spanning my interest in the visual ephemera of the suffragette movement and time/place based parameters. Integrating my paper ephemera collection of historical graphic design from 窪蹋勛圖1880- 1920, that is a pivotal period in the political struggle for Votes for Women.

As an aside I make crocheted figures of the people I am researching which I then animate into little films @stuffedacademic