Research and Engagement Fellow, St Andrews Centre for Critical Sustainabilities (StACCS)
Biography
Edward is a Research and Engagement Fellow at the St Andrews Centre for Critical Sustainabilities (StACCS).
With his background in ecocritical art history, he aims to foster the potential for engagement with the arts and culture to instigate more effective and holistic responses to climate change.
He is currently working on two main independent research projects. The first, ‘The Art of Oil: Modernism and the Rise of the Petroleum Industry’, investigates the relationship between the development of the oil sector and modernist aesthetics. The second, ‘Land Art and the Politics of Mine Remediation’, critically explores the widespread commissioning of Land artworks by extractivist industries to fulfil their legal requirements to restore exploited landscapes.
Alongside, he is involved with several collaborative projects. For example, ‘Inclusive and Sustainable Futures for Scotland’ is a public-facing initiative, co-organised by the Centre for Energy Ethics with support from the Scottish Council on Global Affairs, that promotes alternative thinking about climate action. Also, ‘Critical Velocity: Reimagining Transport for a Sustainable Future’, co-curated with Brittany Rosemary Jones, is an exhibition taking place at the University of Dundee Botanic Garden from 3–28 September 2026 which focuses on the innovation of new modes of transport in contemporary art.
Selected publications
Edward Christie, ‘“What Is Worth More: Art or Life?”: Rethinking Art History With and Against Just Stop Oil,’ Visual Culture in Britain, 23 February 2026.
Maurice Biriotti, Mathilde Bru, Edward Christie, Helena Fallstrom, Nicola Miller, Stephanie Ng, and Joel Stokes, ‘The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Contributions from the Humanities: A Research Report,’ UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, 14 July 2022. This research also resulted in the creation of the UCL SDG Humanities App.
Edward Christie, ‘Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas,’ review of eponymous exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, Object 22, 3 December 2020.
Edward Christie, ‘Art and the Climate Crisis,’ review of Eco-Visionaries: Confronting a Planet in a State of Emergency at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, Burlington Contemporary, 2 January 2020.
Edward Christie, ‘Art History in the Anthropocene,’ review of The Ecological Eye: Assembling an Ecocritical Art History, by Andrew Patrizio, Anthroposphere: The Oxford Climate Review, 11 June 2019.
