Welcome to RAAD
Welcome to the blog for RAAD - the Centre for Research in Art and Design at Birmingham City University. We are a community of artists, designers, makers, thinkers and writers. We believe that creative practice in art, architecture, and design matters and that it can make a difference - transforming individuals, communities, and society. In our research we collaborate, explore, and share knowledge in order to make a difference.
Thread the Loom
Zoe Hillyard, Senior Lecturer BA(Hons) Textile Design and RAAD researcher, reflects here on a collaborative textiles project with Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.
Things of the Least
On 24th October 2025, the exhibition Things of the Least: Lively Exhibition Making with Children under 3 was opened at Manchester Art Gallery. Things of the Least is a 3-year research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It explores the ways very youngest children can actively contribute to exhibition-making, transforming the public space of the gallery.
Making space for Keeping Warm
For the past three years Becky Shaw has been a co-lead on Just Heat, an international research project that explores people’s experiences of energy change since 1940. The focus of the project was to explore how the social, political and emotional meaning of home heating could inform current change.