Education Leaders Program / Birgitta Hosea, MA, FRSA, FHEA

Artist and animator Birgitta Hosea is course director of the Postgraduate Diploma in Character Animation at Central Saint Martins. She is also the organizer of Adobe Inspired Media, a post-production user group at the Curzon Cinema Soho in London. As an Adobe Certified Expert, she freelances as a demonstration artist for Adobe, as an animator, and as a digital animation consultant. Her recent client list includes BBC, Cartoon Network, Disney Interactive, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Sky.

Hosea's first degree was in Drama and Film at Glasgow University, where she subsequently studied theatre design at Glasgow School of Art. After working as an art director and assistant designer on feature films, TV series, pop promos, and fringe, and West End theater, she returned to education for a master's in Computer Imaging and Animation in the mid-1990s. She then went on to work as a freelance web designer and motion graphics animator.

Her teaching and practice-based doctoral research at Central Saint Martins draw on her interdisciplinary background in art, animation, motion graphics, and design for performance. For her character animation course, she has developed performance-based approaches to the practice of animation. Her short films, installations, and performance pieces continue to be featured in festivals, galleries, and conferences worldwide. She was nominated as a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA) in 2004 and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) in 2007.

Conference papers

2009 paper, "Character animation, performance and performativity," University of the Arts London Interdisciplinary Performance Conference, Siobhan Davies Dance Studio, London

2008 paper, "Photosonic synthesis: hearing colour, seeing sound, visualising gesture," Computers and the History of Art 24th Annual Conference, University of London

2008 paper: "TV 2.0: Animation readership/authorship on the Internet," Popular Culture Society Conference, San Francisco

2007 paper, "Performativity and Animation, or How I Became a Cartoon Character," Here Tomorrow Conference, Central Saint Martins, London

2006 paper, "Photosonic synthesis: hearing colour/seeing sound," Technarte 2006 Conference, Bilbao, Spain

Presentations and gallery talks

2007 presentation, "TV 2.0: Citizen Broadcaster," Animation Industry Day organized by Dreamworks, Encounters Film Festival, Bristol

2006 presentation, "Character Animation," FMX Conference, Film Akademie, Stuttgart, Germany

2005 presentation, "DV Filmmaking," Video Forum, Earl's Court, London

2004 presentation, "Designing Characters in Flash,” Digit magazine seminar, Design Museum, London

2002 Presentation, "Symbols and Cycles: Creating Walks in Flash," Digit magazine seminar, Business Design Centre, London