Sarah Wade

Ph.D. History of Art, University College London

M.A. Arts Policy & Management, Birkbeck, University of London

M.A. Higher Education Practice, University of East Anglia

B.A. Mixed Media Arts, University of Westminster

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE)

Alumni of Aurora leadership programme for women (Advance HE)

Sarah's research focuses on human-animal relations and representations of wildlife in contemporary art, exhibitions and museum display, particularly with regards to ecological concerns. She has published on extinction and wildlife conservation issues in artistic and curatorial practice and is co-founder of the Curating the Sea research project, which resulted in a co-edited special issue of the Journal of Curatorial Studies (2020), the book Oceans (2023) for the Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Press Documents of Contemporary Art Series and the major exhibition Sea Inside (Sainsbury Centre, 2025). 

Over the years Sarah has worked with various museums and heritage organisations in research, project management and curatorial capacities and continues to collaborate with museum colleagues on research projects. 

Postgraduate Research Director, School of Art, Media and American Studies/School of History and Art History: 2023 - 2026

Organiser, World Art Research Seminar Series: 2021 - 2022

Member: Equality, Diversity & Inclusion committee, School of Art, Media & American Studies: 2021 - 2022

Research Coordinator for Art History: 2021

Sarah teaches on the BA History of Art with Gallery & Museum Studies and MA Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies. She also lectures widely on art, exhibitions and the environment and is interested in ecopedagogy as an approach to teaching and learning.

Sarah is open to supervising PhD projects on any aspects of her research specialism. She currently supervises PhD and Masters by Research projects relating to curating climate change, decolonising museum collections and representations of nonhuman animals in visual culture.

Contemporary art history

Curatorial practice/studies

Art and ecology

Human-animal relations in art and exhibitions

Art, exhibitions and oceans