Nina O'Reilly

Biography

Nina O’Reilly is a PhD researcher at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Her research explores the changing fortunes of youth/sub/club/queer cultures in the King’s Cross area over time. This PhD presents King’s Cross as a case study for wider conversation about creative agency and access to the city, and the role of young people as active producers of space, particularly in central London. Further it seeks to bear scrutiny on how heritage is shaped in cities, and the forms of destruction this may cause in the service of capital and real estate.

Nina also has an MA in Gender, Sexuality, & Culture from University College Dublin and an MA in Publishing from Oxford Brookes University. Her previous research has focused on music and queer subcultures as well as DIY publishing practices.

Nina has a background in publishing and content development, with experience at Bloomsbury Publishing, King's College London, and currently Central Saint Martins, where she is a Digital Projects Technician. She is also a volunteer oral historian with Rendezvous Projects for the Soundwaves: Music in Newham community heritage project.

Conference papers
British Popular Culture(s) Conference 2025, Falmouth University, June 2025.
Paper titled ‘King’s Crossings: art, culture, and regeneration in King's Cross, London”.

Ordinary lives, Everyday People? Young people, social change and popular cultures, 1930-2000, University of East Anglia, April 2025.
Paper titled “Every-night life: King’s Cross, London in the 1980-90s”.

KISMIF Conference, University of Porto, July 2024
Paper titled “King’s Cross-Pollination: art, music, cinema, and activism in a 1980s post-industrial wasteland.”