Anne Douglas is a Professor Emeritus, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland. Throughout her career as an artist and a researcher, she has been interested in the place of the artist in public life. This interest began in Rome in the late 70s and early 80s (see CV:Rome Scholar in Sculpture 1976-8, Artist in Residence 1984). It developed rapidly through a period in NE England in the late 70s to early 90s in which the arts were called upon to address post-industrial decline and regeneration. Anne undertook one of the early PhDs through the practice of art addressing the challenges and opportunities of this context through the construct of improvisation.
A postdoctoral opportunity brought her to NE Scotland and a new challenge of further developing the relevance of doctoral and postdoctoral research for the practice of art and, in parallel, the place of the contemporary artist in remote rural cultures through experimental work.
Anne has led a programme of research, On the Edge Research (2000-2016) developing with others, key research themes including improvisation, artistic leadership, Cultural Leadership and the Arts among others.
Her work is increasingly focused on the relationship of contemporary art to ecology. She is a Trustee of the Barn, Banchory, a rural arts organisation that is championing new work in this field through national and international partnerships:
Newton Harrison – On The Deep Wealth of this Nation, Scotland
John Newling
Becoming Earthly; imagining new futures – arts and ecology seminar series.
On The Edge Research 