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CV

I am a freelance researcher, curator and artist. 

Broadly, my research explores the key role artists play in knowledge production processes.

I recently completed a post-doctoral project focused on Degrowth and Postgrowth Innovation with the Postgrowth Innovation Lab, European Research Council, at the University of Vigo, Spain. This project was focused on how to realise futures no longer obsessed by, and requiring of, economic growth given the socio-political and environmental impacts of Capitalism. My research explores the tangible and intangible outcomes of art-science transdisciplinary projects and their potential to support post-Capitalist futures. 

The second strand of my research thinks about urban futures and the role of artists in "postgrowth planning": how to build inclusively whilst supporting a plurality of sustainable futures without requiring and generating growth itself. I come to this research question with an interdisciplinary background in the history of urban planning and public health, art history and Classics. I hold a Phd from the University of Cambridge completed as part of the 'Impact of the Ancient City' Project, fully funded by the European Research Council. This research examined the importance of ancient Greco-Roman urbanism to modernisation in nineteenth-century urban planning reform and public health movements, particularly in Liberal Italy through to Fascism. 

I am a musician and self-taught artist with an MA in the History of Fine and Decorative Art from Sotheby's Institute, London. Painting is key to my research process and you can find some of my work under the More tab. 

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CV - Sofia Greaves

 

Trilingual arts-based researcher and historian of urbanism working in postgrowth.

Phd examining how European cultural heritage practices of the 19/20th century were shaped by public health reforms. Presently, the main strand of my research focuses on post-growth urban planning particularly how we can move away from technocratic approaches through arts-based methods and experimentation. A second strand focuses on technology and innovation: how art-science collaborations generate new imaginaries which make visible and transform growth-oriented institutional logics.
 

Professional Experience      
 

Postdoctoral Researcher. Postgrowth Innovation Lab. University of Vigo
25/11/2021 – 02/10/2024 
H2020-ERC-2020-STG; Grant agreement: 947713. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/947713  

Visiting Scientist. Joint Research Centre (Knowledge Service for European Commission) Ispra
01/03/2023 - 01/07/2023
Research collaboration with the SciArt Project: “Naturarchy” Cycle
https://science-art-society.ec.europa.eu/news/postgrowth-greaves-jrc
 

Research Associate, University of Cambridge. Sidney Sussex College
02/06/2020 - 25/11/2021
 

Phd Researcher. University of Cambridge. Lucy Cavendish College
Completed as part of the Impact of the Ancient City ERC Project, Prof. Andrew Wallace -Hadrill (University of Cambridge, Faculty of Classics)

https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/693418
Thesis: “Ideal Cities. The Ancient City and the Modern City in Italy (1860-1914).”

Matriculation 01/10/2017; Defence 02/06/2021; Awarding Ceremony 21/05/2022 (Covid)
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/2da52139-23b4-49ad-9cfd-25ea20690715

 

Visiting Researcher, British School at Rome. Rome, Italy
01/04/2018 - 01/07/2018. Archival research and research collaborations with resident fellows

 

MA: Modern, Fine Art & Decorative Design. Sotheby’s Institute (Distinction)

16/09/2016 - 14/09/2017
Specialism in British and Italian Modernism
Thesis: “Being Modern and British: Cities and Classicism in Giorgio de Chirico, Edward Wadsworth and John Armstrong.”

BA: Classics. University of Durham (First)
01/10/2012 - 19/06/2015
Specialism in Greco-Roman architecture and Latin language
Thesis on Fascist urban planning: “Romanità: New Identity through Urban Space in Mussolini’s Roma Resurgens.”
 

Funding, Prizes & Awards
 

  • British Academy Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research Projects 2024. “Towards Post-growth Cities. The Cultural Politics of Mobility Transitions in Barcelona and London.” Award Reference: KF8\230018. £298,546.00.
     

  • Full funding, Phd, European Research Council, University of Cambridge

  • Full funding, MA: Gordon Laing Scholarship, Sotheby’s Institute. 25/04/2016. £26,000

  • Director Commendation, highest MA result, Sotheby’s Institute. 11/05/2017. Book prize

  • Maltby Exhibition Prize, best finalist dissertation, Durham University. 23/06/2015. £250

  • Maltby Prize, second highest examination results in cohort, Durham. 15/07/2014. £200
     

Artist and Curator

 

  • Transdisciplinary ethnography of Galician witches, medicinal practices and knowledges, in collaboration with pianist, anthropologist and filmmaker. Recorded album, performances across Galicia, 2025

  • “Visualising Scientific Landscapes”. Developed arts-based methodology for three-day workshop with 20 international Postgrowth Organisational Scholars

  • Curator “Water Re-organises the Land.” Pontevedra, Spain, 18/06/2024 - 21/06/2024

  • Curator “Illustrating Ancient History Exhibition” Cambridge Museum 3/11/2020-30/01/2021

  • Women be Bold for Change. International Group exhibition. Adam & Eve DDB. 02/2017

  • Glyndebourne Opera Tour Art Exhibition. Second prize. 10/2016

  • Cooper Studios. Co-founder and Assistant Manager, 01/09/2013 – 1/09/2016. Set up art studio and gallery for students, gutted unused building and built studio space, exhibitions.

  • White Cube London: Digital Archivist, 29/02/2016 - 01/06/2016. Communicated with alpha galleries, sourced and prepared material for publication. Record management, archival displays.

  • Resident Artist: London Mozart Players, Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra, University of London Symphony Orchestra (drawings from life, concert poster design).

  • Graphic design and illustration for academic texts: Rome and the Colonial City, Oxbow 2022; Cities as Palimpsests?, Oxbow 2022; Remembering and Forgetting the Ancient City, Oxbow 2022; Critiques of Growth, UVigo 2023
     

Urban Planning Practitioner Engagement 
 

  • Doughnut Economics Action Lab: “Doughnut Cities within an History of Urban Design.” Organised interactive workshop with 100+ participants, Doughnut Economics Action Lab, L. Gross, L. Maia & Prof. S. Goldhill. March 2022
     

  • Societat Catalana d'Ordenació del Territori (SCOT), Barcelona. "Una Perspectiva Postcrecimiento sobre la Ordenación del Territorio." Invited speaker, roundtable with practitioners.  March 2023 
     

  • FEEL Project, Interreg Europe and Energy Cities, Valencia.  35 participants, 12 partners: cities and regions representing 8 countries. “Postgrowth Planning.” Transition to the Frugal City: business model; public acceptance and adoption. Frugal cities through Energy Efficiency and Low-tech communities. November 2023
     

  • Placemaking Europe, Pontevedra. “Postgrowth Innovation.” Session on ‘Digital Dynamics, Urban Experimentations, Tangible Experiences, Enabling Environments’. September 2022
     

  • Norman Foster Foundation, Roca Gallery, Madrid. “Steps to decelerate urban metabolisms.” (Hacia un planeamento urbano metabólicamente desacelerado). Collaboration with Arquid and equipo.exe. In Spanish, Scheduled 02/10/2024
     

  • AESOP Urban Planning Conference, Paris. Roundtable with practitioners. July 2024.
     

  • Urbanistica Podcast, “Postgrowth Planning & Placemaking.” with Mustafa Sherif

PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

 

Public Health and Urban Planning

  • Greaves, S. 2021. “Cholera and the Ancient City in Naples (1860-1914).” In Morgan, C., and M. Gharipour (eds.), Epidemic Urbanism. How Contagious Diseases have Shaped Global Cities, 53-61. ISBN 9781789384703
     

  • Greaves, S. 2022. “Roman Planning as a Model for Urban Modernity in Liberal Naples.” In Ottewill-Soulsby, S. and J. Martínez-Jiménez (eds.), Remembering and Forgetting the Ancient City. Oxbow Press. 137–164. doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2gvdnnz.13
     

  • Greaves, S. 2022. “Ildefonso Cerdà and the Eixample grid plan, Barcelona (1859). To be or not to be Rome?” In Greaves, S., and A. Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), Rome and the Colonial City. Oxbow Press. 327–352. doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2gvdnpg.22
     

  • Greaves, S. and Wallace-Hadrill, A. 2022. “Introduction. De-colonising the Roman Grid.”  In Greaves, S., and A. Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), Rome and the Colonial City, 1-24. doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2gvdnpg.7 
     

  • Greaves, S. Public Health, the Ancient City and Modernity: Italy 1860 - 1914. Forthcoming monograph with Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Classical Series. 2025.

History and Postgrowth Planning

 

  • Greaves, S. “Spatial Critiques of Growth.” In Pansera, Lloveras, Robra, Suarez-Eiroa, Schramm, Greaves, Fortuny, Becker, Keurhorst, & Bergamo. (2023). Critiques of Growth: An Introduction. University of Vigo. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10356894

 

  • Greaves, S., and Doezema, T. “Histories of Circularity: A Critical Reframing of Nature-Culture Relationality in the Circular Economy.” Nature and Culture Journal, Winter 2024.

 

  • Greaves, S. “Semiotic Critique of the Circular Economy as a Myth.” In Hanaček, K., Tsagkari, M, and B. Roy (eds.) Degrowth. Dialogues for Degrowth: Interdisciplinary Perspectives for Sustainable and Inclusive Futures. Edward Elgar Publishing. Winter, 2024.

 

  • Greaves, S. “A Historical Approach to the Degrowth Spatial Agenda.”
    First round of revisions, Journal of Urban History

 

  • Greaves, S. 2023. “The Lives of a Roman Neighbourhood. Tracing the Imprint of the Past, 500 BCE to the Present.” The Classical Review, 1-3. doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X23001944

 

Art & Postgrowth
 

  • Greaves, S., Pansera, M., and Lloveras, J. “SciArt at the Joint Research Centre. Post-normal Science and Institutional Change.” In preparation, Research Policy

INVITED CONTRIBUTIONS TO POPULAR MAGAZINES

  • Greaves, S. 2022, June 6. Vertical taxis. Is it Worth Privatising the Sky? (Taxis Verticales. Merece la Pena Privatizar el Cielo?) The Conversation, ES

  • Greaves, S. 2023, February 24. Sustainability is Not a “Problem” for Technology to Fix. A Postgrowth Perspective.” (La Sostenibilidad no es un Problema Tecnológico. Perspectiva Post-crecimiento). TELOS Magazine, ES

  • Greaves, S. 2023, February 2. “The Myth of Sisyphus, Science & Carbon Removal.” Resilience.org/Post Carbon Institute
     

Public Speaking, Conference and Seminar Presentations
 

  • Resilienze Festival, “La Città Neutrale e i Suoi Abitanti.” Resilienze Festival, Le Serre di Bologna. 07/06/2023

  • Planning Dialogues, “Combining Art and Science in Planning.”  In collaboration with the Centre for Research on Transport, Territory and Environment, University of Porto, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo, Department of the Built Environment at Aalto University, Finland and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. 17/04/2024

  • European Commission & Joint Research Centre. "Post-growth. Researching the potential for arts and science collaborations to lead us to futures beyond capitalism." April 2023

  • Public Participation and Deliberative Democracy Festival, JRC. "Art and postgrowth planning." with F. Fagani, G. Tartari, G. Zenga and G. Pulcher. November 2022

  • Web2Learn, “Environmental Citizen Sensing: Social participation, Arts and Technology.” Open Social Learning. December 2022

  • Shrinking Cities & Regeneration Symposium. "An introduction to Post-growth Planning."  Postgrowth Era. Collaboration with Wuhan University. May 2023

  • European Society for Ecological Economics. “Myth Making and the Circular Economy.” June 2022

  • Cambridge Seminars. “Ideal Cities, Ancient Cities, Postgrowth Futures." November 2022

  • The British School at Rome, "Re-imagining the Grid in the Nineteenth Century. To be, or not to be Rome.” Rome & the Colonial City Conference, Rome, 31/01/2020

  • Epidemic Urbanism, “The Sanitation Campaign against Cholera in Naples (1860-1910).” Reflections on History (What Insights…might Inform our Understanding of COVID-19?) Columbia University/Morgan State University, Online Symposium, 29/05/2020

  • École Française, "Città Ideali: le Convergenze tra Obiettivi dell’Urbanistica e Motivazioni Archeologici a Roma, 1870-1914.” Reconstruire Rome Conference, Rome, 30/10/2018

 

ORGANISATION OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES

 

Degrowth / ISEE International Conference, Pontevedra, Spain. 18/06/2024 - 21/06/2024

  • Scientific Committee: reviewing and programming arts and urbanism submissions

Rome and the Colonial City. British School at Rome, Italy. 27/01/2020 - 31/01/2020

  • Scientific Committee: organisation, reviewing and selecting submissions

  • Design and production of conference materials

  • Book Editor: Rome and the Colonial City, eds. Greaves and Wallace Hadrill, 2022


FURTHER TEACHING EXPERIENCE
 

  • “Arts-based research”. Phd symposium, Degrowth/ESEE Conference. June 2024. 45 students.

  • Nenas en ciencia,”. Discussion “Science” with Galician schools. EPAPU Lerez, February 2022

  • Undergraduate Lecturer. “Italian Fascism.” University of Cambridge, Faculty of Classics 01/10/2020 - 13/03/2022

  • Undergraduate Supervision. Rome. Reception and Memory. Cambridge 01/10/2020 - 13/03/2022 (25 students)

  • Undergraduate Supervision. Cultural Politics. Faculty of Classics. 01/10/2019 - 13/03/2022

  • Undergraduate thesis supervisor and mentor. “Mussolini and Fascist Mosaics in the Foro Italico.
     

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

 

  • Editor of the Degrowth Journal: 2021 - present

  • Associate of LSE Cities: 2024 - present

  • Member of the Postgrowth Cities Coalition: 2023 - present

  • Member of the European Community of Art and Science Practice: 2023 - present

  • Member of the European Society for Ecological Economics: 2022 - present

  • Member of the Municipal Degrowth Network: 2021 - present

 

LANGUAGES
 

  • Italian: mother tongue

  • English: mother tongue

  • Spanish: C1

  • Galician: basic spoken, excellent comprehension skills

  • French: basic spoken, excellent comprehension skills

Work exhibited in the Women Be Bold for Change ExhibitionInternational Women's Day (2017) at adam&eveDDB.

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