THE V&A

Research Institute

Katherine Mitchell looking out of a window at the V&A

Katherine Mitchell

PhD Student, V&A / Birkbeck, University of London

Experimental Futures: Navigating speculative dimensions of collecting digital art and design in the contemporary museum

I am an AHRC-funded PhD student, based between the V&A and Birkbeck, University of London.  

My doctoral research investigates how born-digital art and design objects disrupt and exhaust conventional collecting practices, sometimes to the point of breakdown, and advocates for how museum procedures are advanced through experimentation and adaptation. Through studying complex digital objects that push museums’ capacities of care to its limits, I advance more speculative dimensions of collecting, care and future failure, while probing traditional paradigms of ownership, preservation and permanence.  

Before my PhD, I came from an academic and professional background in architecture. I also hold an MPhil in film and screen studies, and have had teaching roles with both Birkbeck and VARI.

My supervisors are Dr Joel McKim, Birkbeck, University of London, and Natalie Kane, V&A.