Dr Cecilia Stenbom

Assistant Professor

School: Design Arts and Creative Industries

Cecilia Stenbom is an award-winning artist and filmmaker. Her work has been screened and exhibited nationally and internationally. Her works span from narrative fiction and hybrid documentary, to experimental, artists’ film and moving image art. It occupies a unique position in that it is moving between gallery practice and conventional narrative filmmaking, disseminated in both contexts.

Cecilia’s practice is focused on the moving image and its relationship to the real world – how the moving image permeates reality and in turn, how the everyday is transformed into narrative fiction. Her research interest lies in the processes and methods – both conventional and experimental – involved in narrative filmmaking and how they feed into the above interrogation.

Cecilia welcomes practice-led PhD applications especially projects that cut across disciplinary boundaries – moving image art, experimental film, documentary and narrative fiction. Doctoral projects that demonstrate innovative practice-based methodologies would be very warmly received.

For more information see ceciliastenbom.com.

Email Cecilia

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

My research output is primarily films and moving image artworks. My research interests are focused on media saturated, consumer driven everyday environments – set within public, institutional and domestic structures - and how they notions of identity and belonging, and, in turn, conditions behaviour and interaction. Themes explored are unspoken social protocols, professional/personal interaction and the muted catharsis of the everyday.

I employ a creative practice led methodology that employs both documentary and fiction conventions to generate new narratives, and in the process of doing so, to interrogate established screen-based formats and film production methodologies.

Recent projects include:

InterPlay (2021 - ongoing) is a body of research and works supported by Arts Council England’s Develop Your Creative Practice award. The project sought to explore the application of applied theatre techniques within corporate management training using it both to generate a narrative structure and dramatic content. The text piece InterPlay (Situation room updates) was presented as part of Dark Matter at Workplace Foundation.

diem (2019) is an experimental observational documentary developed and produced through Connect/Exchange, a residency programme instigated by Northern Film & Media and hosted by Chapter Arts in Cardiff. The film explores the idea of institution; the individuals that operate within them and the architectural space they occupy. Exploring a wide range of institutions including civic, legal, educational, and third sector. The film is not narrated but takes an observational documentary approach to capture the unwritten structures of an institution and the non-verbal interactions, seeking out the poetic in the seemingly ordinary and mundane.

Rules of Engagement (2018) is a narrative short film based on real experiences. The film consists of three vignettes depicting everyday scenarios wherein individuals come up against unwritten or tacit social protocols. The film first screened during a national tour of screenings and talks including Regent Street Cinema (London), CCA (Glasgow), Tyneside Cinema (Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Since the premiere, the work has publicly shown nationally and internationally, including Innsbruck International Contemporary Biennial of the Arts in Austria 2020. The project received funds from Arts Council England and NICAP (Newcastle University Institute for Creative Arts Practice).

Parallel (2017) Parallel is an experimental short film. The project sought to reflect upon connections between the North East of England and West Sweden through a televisual and cinematic exchange whereby scenes from television and cinema were transposed and reimagined in the opposite location. The work was presented part of the exhibition Somewhere Becoming Sea, curated by Film & Video Umbrella at Humberside Gallery and Hull City of Culture.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Radio Off, Stenbom, C. 1 Nov 2024, In: Sightlines Journal
Bad News: Film and Critical Statement, Stenbom, C., Young, B. 29 Jun 2023, In: Screenworks
Bad News, Stenbom, C., Young, B., Gardner, N., Elliott, A., Dellow, J., Connolly, M., Dalesman, E., Ludbrook, A., Eyres, J., Gibson, C., O'Hare, D. 23 Jan 2023
‘Lacking’ subjects: challenging the construction of the ‘empowered’ graduate in museum, gallery and heritage studies, Coffield, E., Markham, K., Crosby, J., Stenbom, C., Antoniou, M. 1 Apr 2023, In: Arts and Humanities in Higher Education
Radio off, Stenbom, C. 17 Feb 2023
Diem, Stenbom, C. 16 Nov 2019
Rules of engagement: investigating the transformation of unwritten social protocols into screen-based representations through hybridity and liminal practices, Stenbom, C. 2019
BEAM REACH BLASTING, Stenbom, C. 10 Feb 2018
Rules of Engagement, Stenbom, C. 31 Jan 2018
Parallel, Stenbom, C. 26 Aug 2016

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Other: What Are Words Worth? 2024
Other: Switch 2023 2023
Other: Radio Off 2023
Other: London Short Film Festival 2023 - Cues for The Inbetween 2023
Visiting an external academic institution: University of Gothenburg 2022
Other: Dark Matter 2021
Invited talk: Mapping Gateshead: Past Creative and Cultural Landscapes 2021
Other: Reel People - interview for podcast 2020
Other: Human Capital Innsbruck International Biennale for the Arts 2020
Other: Everything must go: part 2 2019

PGR Supervision

Sarah Bell Changing bodies, changing attitudes: Exploring historic and contemporary representations of women and the menopause experience in American and European horror films from The Leech Woman (Edward Dein, 1960) to The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024). Start Date: 18/12/2025