Bate Collection awarded Participatory Research Fund for inaugural Artist in Residence, a collaboration with Modern Art Oxford (MAO) and TORCH

A Participatory Research Fund has been awarded to the Bate Collection, led by Dr Emanuela Vai (Head of Collections) and TORCH, led by Alex Coke (Theatre & Performance Research Partnerships Manager), in collaboration with Modern Art Oxford (MAO).

This research partnership will merge academic research and creative practice with the experimental artistic work of the cross-disciplinary video artist Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom (MAO). Boakye-Yiadom will invite a group of students and musicians to participate in a new venture - playing a new composition using the Bate Collection's wide range of historic musical instruments. These performances, both collectively and individually, will be recorded and transformed into digital video resources, which will be made available online as part of an archive, presented on the MAO, TORCH and Bate websites and which will form the basis of a temporary installation in the new Bate in 2026.

By merging artistic practice with historical objects, this approach creates new pathways for research innovation and public engagement, enriching both creative output and generating lines of future academic inquiry. This initiative is joining a cohort of new research projects under the Bate’s new Research Strategy led by Dr Vai which fosters novel methods for music and material culture studies, and expands the potential of historical research through creative methodologies.