Ruxandra Lupu - Printmaker/Digital Humanities Researcher

As a traditional printmaker and digital humanities researcher my educational and career path has not been a conventional one. Having studied business administration at the University of Economic Studies in Bucharest, I decided to complement my education through a higher education degree in graphic arts and printmaking in Italy, before starting my practice-led PhD at the University of Leeds in 2016. This path enabled me to work at the intersection of academia and industry, as proven by my track record of major collaborations on EU-funded projects (Oct. 2015-Oct. 2016) and the 4 independent smaller-scale projects that I ran between 2019 and 2020. This activity in particular testifies to my ability to think and act independently and to the strong project management skills that I acquired. As a proposal writer I have been working under very tight deadlines and managing consortium teams of more than 10 partners, which has developed my cross-cultural communication skills and the capacity to manage simultaneously multiple deadlines. 

I am a professional printmaker with in-depth knowledge of pattern design and textile printing acquired at the Academy of Fine Arts in Catania and through several professional courses at the Leeds College of Arts (e.g. sustainable dying and printing methods). Through my creative and independent research activity, I intend to develop innovative initiatives that push the boundaries of traditional fashion and printmaking. In fact, the four very competitive grants that I received from institutions such as the EU-funded programmes, British Council and Norddisk Kulturfond, are a recognition of the high level of excellency and innovation of my projects.