Beki
- From: West Yorkshire, UK
- Studying: PhD in History of Art (full-time)
- Funding: AHRC Doctoral Scholarship
- Supervision: Prof. Jason Edwards
What are your research interests / what are you working on?
"My research centres on visual allegory and its use as a mode of rhetoric on funerary sculpture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I am concerned to approach sculpted allegory as a form of three dimensional language, which idiosyncratically narrated histories of visual culture in Britain. I aim to trace the rise and fall of allegory’s popularity from the ‘Baroque’ monuments of the mid 1700’s to to Neoclassical sculpture, and show that the gap between the two periods is not as clear cut as scholarship would suggest."
What has been the most fascinating part of your research so far, and why?
"I am currently working on a chapter for my thesis which examines how allegory was used as a legitimising tool for middle class commemorative monuments. The most interesting work I have done so far has been researching Richard Westmacott’s moment to William Bentink which was erected in Calcutta in the nineteenth century. The relief panel of the sculpture depicted an allegory of the sati - the self immolation of a hindu widow, and presented a dogmatic, Anglicised allegory of ‘foreign’ suffering for a Western audience."
How do you find the research facilities at York?
"Researching sculpture at York is aided by the library's extensive online subscriptions to e-journals and databases such as ECCO, alongside its holdings of eighteenth and nineteenth century volumes at the Minster Library."
What background do you come to your PhD from and what made you choose your research area?
"Since working at the Henry Moore Institute for two years after the completion of my MA I decided to return to York for further study of sculpture. Sculpture and death, and sculpture as a form of resistance towards death, are fascinating aspect of art history. Their permanence and importance continues to extend beyond the scope of my research, which will (hopefully!) provide me with other avenues to pursue after the completion of my studies at York."
