Artist Dr Linda Stupart
Hosts Dr Sarah Bulmer, Professor Susannah Cornwall, Dr Daniel Fountain and members of the Gender and Sexuality Collective.
Linda Stupart is an artist, writer, and educator from Cape Town, South Africa, currently based in Birmingham, UK. Their work explores climate change, embodiment, abjection, and the transgression of borders, often through radical site-specific performance, film, writing, and sculpture. Recent projects have included performing on icebergs in the Arctic Circle (2019), immersing in the River Cole, Birmingham (2021–2023), balancing on a precarious log in the Danube (2024), and floating on a homemade raft on the Grand Union Canal, Birmingham (2024). Stupart’s practice is deeply attuned to the ecologies, histories, and fictions of the sites they inhabit, challenging conventional narratives of place, bodies, and communities.
As a dedicated artist and educator working within the context of a continual rise of 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.
For the Creative Fellowship, Linda is collaborating with the Sexuality and Gender Studies Collective, a new initiative reimagining research and teaching in sexuality and gender at the University. The Collective brings together staff, students, and external partners across disciplines, aiming to build connections, increase visibility, and foster new approaches to research and education across HASS and STEM fields.
The fellowship is exploring key questions, including:
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How can UK universities remain spaces for critical study and discussion of sexuality, sex, and gender in a changing legal and political landscape?
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How can creative practice support academic freedom and research in the face of growing hostility toward LGBTQI+ rights?
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What connects the study of gendered bodies, identities, practices, and discourses across STEM and HASS disciplines, and how can differences be bridged?
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How can research on gender and sexuality inform our understanding of pressing social justice challenges, including climate change and conflict?
Linda is collaborating with the collective for the remainder of the 2025/2026 academic year and we will be updating this page as the fellowship progresses.
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.
About the Creative Fellowships
Arts and Culture Creative Fellowships offer creative practitioners the opportunity to engage with innovative academics and professional services staff across the University of Exeter’s colleges and campuses. The Creative 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.
This Creative Fellowship has the potential to offer lots of opportunities for joint exploration and enquiry, and Arts and Culture are really excited to be working with Linda and the Gender and Sexuality Collective to see what creative ideas flow from the process.
University of Exeter
Room 153, Queen's Building
The Queen's Drive
Exeter EX4 4QH
