New Creative Fellowship to Explore Gender and Sexuality Teaching and Research at the University of Exeter
From January – July 2026, artist, writer and educator Linda Stupart will be working with the University of Exeter’s Gender and Sexuality Collective as an Arts and Culture Creative Fellow. They will be collaborating on an exciting new creative project to reimagine ways in how gender and sexuality could be taught and researched across the institution.
The newly created Sexuality and Gender Studies Collective aim to strengthen cross-disciplinary collaboration, promote visibility of expertise, and develop innovative education and research initiatives. Bringing together staff, students, and external partners across faculties and disciplines, the Collective seeks to address pressing social and political challenges affecting LGBTQI+ communities and advance critical study of sexuality and gender in the 21st century.
The Creative Fellowship will see Stupart working alongside interdisciplinary groups at Exeter to explore what it means to live, work, and play with sexuality and gender today. Through creative practice, the fellowship will support dialogue, experimentation, and collaboration, generating new ways of connecting gender and sexuality research across disciplines and engaging with wider social justice concerns.
Stupart’s work is widely recognised for its radical site-specificity and immersive approach, exploring climate change, embodiment, abjection, and border transgression through performance, film, writing, and sculpture. Highlights include performances on icebergs in the Arctic Circle (2019), the River Cole in Birmingham (2021–2023), and the Danube (2024), as well as collaborative immersive productions addressing ecological crises and queer embodiment.
Stupart said, “As a dedicated artist and educator working within the context of increasing political extremism in the UK, it is important to occupy spaces of Higher Education with queer ways of making; being and learning in the world.”
Dr Daniel Fountain, member of the Gender and Sexuality Collective at the University of Exeter added, “Linda brings extensive experience leading community workshops both within and beyond academia, and their process-driven approach will be invaluable as we explore, and indeed reimagine, new opportunities for gender and sexuality research and teaching across the University.”
The Creative Fellowships are funded by the University of Exeter’s Arts and Culture team and offer creative practitioners’ opportunities to engage with innovative academics and professional services staff across the institution. The Fellowships are designed to benefit both the Creative Fellow and the host, providing inspiration for new approaches to creative practice and generating fledgling ideas that could be the springboard for future initiatives.
Naome Glanville, Arts and Culture Co-Ordinator at the University of Exeter, said: “This Creative Fellowship has the potential to offer lots of opportunities for joint exploration and enquiry. We are excited to be working with Linda and the Gender and Sexuality Collective to see what creative ideas flow from the process.”
To keep up to date with events and news relating to the fellowship, you can join the Arts and Culture mailing list or follow Arts and Culture on social media (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn). You can also find out more on the project’s webpage.
