Kate is a Fine Art studio lecturer, working across media with a focus on sculpture, multidisciplinary performance, collaborative community public art projects and digital media.

She studied Fine Art BA at Exeter College of Art, MA in sculpture at Chelsea College of Art and Design, held the Rome Sculpture Scholarship and was Gloucestershire College of Art and Technology Fellow in Sculpture. She completed her PhD at the University of Wolverhampton, exploring the relation between 'real' and 'virtual' sculpture.

Currently working on a collaborative project funded by the EPSRC, The Nineteenth Step, mathematics as performance with composer Dorothy Ker, choreographer Carol Brown and mathematician Marcus du Sautoy using the writings of Jorge Luis Borges as a starting point to explore mathematics, infinity and the shape of the universe.

Her research interests include collaboration, sculpture and its relation to the virtual, the use of new technologies as part of community consultation, creating meeting places in virtual worlds such as Second life. In 2007 she organised a series of talks for RIBA Architecture Week at the Design Museum London, discussing how architects and artists are using Second Life as part of their practice. She is interested in working with different community groups using practical sculptural techniques alongside new technologies and has been commissioned to work on public art consultation and production of artwork.

Website: http://www.reading.ac.uk/fineart/about/staff/k-allen.asp

Email: k.allen AT reading.ac.uk