Adam Knight is an artist and Tutor (Research) at the RCA on the Graduate Diploma in Art & Design. Based at White City, he teaches across art and design specialisms with a focus on fine art practice.
Adam Knight studied for a BA in Fine Art at Kent Institute of Art and Design, before going on to complete his MA in Print at the RCA in 2007. He holds a postgraduate qualification in Teaching and Learning in the Creative Arts and has been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2010. He returned to the RCA in 2014 to undertake a practice-led research degree in Fine Art. Adam has previously taught at Central Saint Martins, London College of Communication, Hong Kong Design Institute, MITID Pune, Leeds Beckett, Bath Spa and the University for the Creative Arts.
Adam has exhibited, broadcast, published and screened works widely, including Kunsthalle, Rostock; Museu de Cidade; Lisbon, Whitechapel Gallery and Cashmere Radio in Berlin. He has lived and worked internationally participating in residences at CheLA, Buenos Aires; The Watch, Berlin; ESXLA, Los Angeles; A-Z West, Joshua Tree; Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht; Atelier Salzamt, Linz and ACC Galerie, Weimar.
Gallery
More information
Practice
Taking apart the formats of artistic production, Adam Knight addresses complexities inherent in art-making: pursuing and interrogating moments of a-synchronicity, irony, withdrawal, doubt and critique. His work often begins with a series of field visits and recordings to establish potential working practices; these include how subjects might be hybridly represented through fiction and documentary. Adam develops methodologies of looking away, turning from, withdrawal and closed listening. He considers desire-lines as a way of ‘armaturing’ and allowing for difference between minor and major moments of a project or artwork.
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Selected Exhibitions
Transmission – The Watch, Cashmere Radio Berlin, Germany, 2019
Inter-regnum-um-um, cheLA/Art Basel, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2019
MOSTYN 21 Open, Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno, UK, 2019
SITEWORK, Cornell University, Ithaca, US, 2019
Stadtbild HRO, Kunsthalle Rostock, Germany, 2018
Direct Object/Direct Action, ACRE TV/Threewalls, Chicago, US, 2015
Tiny Lag, ACME Project Space, London, UK, 2014
On Dilettantism, Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany, 2012
…And Then Again, Museu de Cidade, Lisbon, Portugal, 2010
ArtSchool/UK Phase II, Whitechapel Gallery & Cell Project Space, London, 2010
Selected Screenings
TRACKINGSHOT.1 – Desert Sessions, Big Screen Southend, Focal Point Gallery, 2018
PLAY / Video & Performance Festival, Cologne, Germany, 2018
From East to West with Love, Kino Bodo, Łódź, Poland, 2016
The Practice Session, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, 2013
OUTPOST Open Film, Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn, 2012
Selected Publications
LOS/LOSS/LOST, in Writing Cities: London – Los Angeles Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, Intellect Books Vol 10, No.2, pp. 267–299 ISBN 1753-5190, 2018
Why Would I Lie? (eds.) Peter Le Couteur and Susannah Haslam. ISBN 978-1-910642-05-4, 2015
PROSPECTUS, (eds) John Reardon & Verina Gfader, ISBN 978-1-78280-030-9, 2013
External collaborations
Recently Adam worked on a Knowledge Exchange funded project with MA Design Communication students at Central Saint Martins. In collaboration with the British Library and CSM Study Collection, ‘The Haptic Archive’ explored how sound can be used to enhance born-digital artefacts.
He was member of Praxis-Forum professional development group based at The Showroom, London; exploring how artists with disabilities engage with art communities outside of the disabled art context through participation in a programme of monthly peer mentoring forums.
Since 2016 Adam has been a member of the artist collective TRACKINGSHOT, who investigate frontier spaces through art practice and cross-disciplinary research. They have been funded by Arts Council England, University of Lancaster and the University for the Creative Arts.
Current and recent research
Knight, Adam (2019) The (---) Tower, Radio broadcast
http://research.uca.ac.uk/view/creators/Knight=3AAdam=3A=3A.html (cashmereradio.com) from former GDR Watchtower in Schlesischer Busch, Berlin.
In summer 2019 Adam was artist-in-residence at The Watchtower in Schlesischer Park, Berlin. The project worked with the watchtower’s historical and geographical visibility as monument, landmark and tool of surveillance. The (—) Tower is loosely conceived as a response to John Smith’s 1987 work The Black Tower, whereby listenability rather than visibility is used to explore The Watchtower as an historical and contemporary witness. The audio-work embraces dualistic East and West German approaches to Hörspiel (radio-plays); combining disembodied and didactic experiences.
Knight, Adam (2018) Los/ Loss/Lost. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, 10 (2). pp. 263-269. ISSN 1753-5190 (Print) 1753-5204 (Online)
Los/ Loss/ Lost explores how memory and architectural conservation are played out in Los Angeles. Structuring the text is a series of photographs showing thirteen historical buildings designated ‘lost’ by the Los Angeles Conservancy. The accompanying text embraces the motif of ‘lostness’ in biographical, artistic, literary and cinematic responses to the city. The publication attempts to parallel a longitudinal artistic project photographing former cultural monuments of the German Democratic Republic.*****
Knight, Adam and Bogner, Simone (2015–) Cultural Monuments of the German Democratic Republic. Forthcoming book from M Books, Weimar
The heritage preservation law of 1975 attached particular importance to monuments, which sought to actualise the German Democratic Republic as its own sovereign nation through constructed canonical architectural history. This practice culminated in the governing Socialist Unity Party’s commissioned publication Cultural Monuments of GDR History, that was scheduled to be published in 1989 — but never was. In late-2014 architectural historian Simone Bogner located the manuscript in an archive near Berlin. The book presents 360 architectural objects connected to GDR history with accompanying texts by eighty different authors, incorporating sites of artistic, industrial, scientific, technical and political importance.
Awards and grants
a-n Artist Bursary (Mar 2019) Travel & Research award to Buenos Aires
Research award, University for the Creative Arts (Feb 2019) Travel & accommodation costs for ‘The Watch’, Berlin
Research award, University for the Creative Arts (Nov 2018) Continuing travel and accommodation costs for ‘Cultural Monuments of the GDR’ project
Knowledge Exchange Fund, Central Saint Martins (Mar 2018) Funding to develop ‘Haptic Archive’
PGR Conference Fund, Royal College of Art (Mar 2018) Presentation of research at Urban Wastelands’ conference, UdK in Berlin
Research award, University for the Creative Arts (Nov 2017) Continuing travel and accommodation costs for ‘Cultural Monuments of the GDR’ project
Grant for the Arts Award, Arts Council England (Sep 2016) Research, Travel and Development for ‘Trackingshot.1 – Desert Sessions’
PGR Conference Fund, Royal College of Art (Sep 2016) Travel to ‘Drive of Walking’ workshop at Jan Van Eyck Academie
Research award, University for the Creative Arts (Aug 2016) Continuing travel and accommodation costs for ‘Cultural Monuments of the GDR’ project
Research award, University for the Creative Arts (Aug 2015) Travel and accommodation costs for ‘Los/Loss/Lost’ project
Artists’ Stipend, City of Linz (Mar 2015)
Research award, Royal College of Art (Feb 2015) Filming and visitation rights to Haus Wittgenstein, Vienna.
New Creative Market - European Regional Development (Oct 2014) Professional development and mentoring
Professional Development Award UCA (2014-18) Tuition fee costs for MPhil research degree
British Council travel grant (June 2012) For exhibition ‘On Dillentantism’, ACC Galerie Weimar
Fellowship Stipend, City of Weimar, Oct 2011