Dr Sharon Young

Biography

Sharon Young is a Northern Irish artist based in London.

Sharon is a lecturer in fine art at Glasgow School of Art and University of the Arts, London. She also works part time at Ithaca College, London Centre; Boston University, Study Abroad, London; and Royal College of Art, London.

Her work has been presented and exhibited worldwide including The Freud Museum, London; Stroud Film Festival; Tate Exchange – Tate Liverpool // Venice; Encontros das Imagem, Braga; Goa Photo Festival; Cosmos, Arles; Peckham 24, London; The Centre of Photography, Clement-Ferrond and P3 Ambika Gallery, London and has been the recipient of awards such as Flash Forward Magenta Awards, Canada and The International Photography Awards, New York.

Her work is held in public collections such as the V&A Library, The Yale Centre for British Art and PhotoIreland Foundation.
She has presented her research at conferences such as She is Hysterical, UCLA, PSi 25, Calgary, Ithaca College, New York and University of Oxford and CRASSH, University of Cambridge.

Sharon has a PhD from the Royal College of Art entitled:
Once More with Feeling: A reinvention of ‘hysteria’; through photography, performance and autofiction.

I am an artist with an interest in hysteria
Hysteria is a phenomenon rooted in repression. A physical embodied symptom that has no rhyme nor reason, medically speaking. Through analysis (sometimes) the reason for the symptom is revealed. And (sometimes) as a result the strange symptoms are alleviated. Hysteria is often associated with women, the fin de siècle and France where symptoms included fainting spells, numbness of limbs or limpness and malaise. In my artwork I’m interested in the symptoms that relate to language such as fragmented, stuttering and broken speech; an inability to recall words and articulate things so-called sensibly. I use these fragments to tell the hysterics’ story as an act of defiance against societal norms.

Research Specialisms:

- auto-theory
- feminism
- experimental writing
- photography
- performance
- film

I am interested in supervising PhD students with an interest in experimental and contemporary fine art practice, interdisciplinary practice, women's cultural contributions, sexual politics and the use of non-normative writing and the subjective voice.
I am on the editorial team for reviewing non-conventional peer reviewed submissions to JAWS Journal.