Professor Simeon Hunter arrives from New Orleans as Head of Fine and Applied Art

Professor Simeon Hunter has joined Liverpool Hope as Head of Fine and Applied Art and Professor of Art History and Visual Culture.

Before returning to the UK to join Liverpool Hope, Professor Hunter was working as Head of Visual Arts at Loyola University New Orleans. He joined the University in 2000 and was witness to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The storm left the city in ruins and the University with serious financial concerns as, after a three month mandatory evacuation, many students did not return.

Professor Hunter said: “It was a very difficult time for the city and the University but I was so proud of how the students and my colleagues came together to rebuild their own lives and help others.”

After the hurricane, Professor Hunter’s course Architecture and Society took on a more local significance with the majority of students engaging in service learning by offering time, labour and understanding to organisations such as Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities and Brad Pitt’s Make it Right Foundation.

Before working in New Orleans, Professor Hunter taught for three years in the department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, with further experience as a Development Officer at the Royal College of Music and as an image librarian at both UCL and the Courtauld Institute’s Witt Library. He also works as an Art Historian and Critic and in recent years has chosen increasingly to write collaboratively with artists. He was involved with the New Orleans Biennial and looks forward to working with the Liverpool Biennial in future.

Professor Hunter said: “When I first came to Liverpool Hope I was incredibly impressed with the facilities available to Fine Art and Design students, not only the scale of the studio spaces but also the equipment available in the material areas to support the traditions of making everything from the smallest interventions in fine metal to very large scale digital screen printing available in textiles. Everything is here to support students looking to practice in ceramic, metal, wood or any imaginable combination of these and many other things.. The Cornerstone Building is a beautiful environment for creative visual practice.

“I am very taken by the philosophy at Liverpool Hope that good practice should be tied to reflective thinking and informed understanding. I am a great believer in the need for artists to have not only the practical skills to produce well-made objects, but for this to be underpinned by meaningful knowledge of themselves, the tradition in which they work and the world around them. Liverpool Hope’s ethos is centred on educating the whole person; this seems to me an ideal place to begin any creative process.”