Gretchen Coombs

Gretchen Coombs is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Design and Creative Practice Enabling Capability Platform at RMIT. Her writing on socially engaged art has appeared in Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, Eyeline as well as academic journals. Gretchen runs writing workshops (Writing the Social) for artists who want to learn more about ethnographic and creative methods for their social practice.

Gretchen’s most recent work navigates a spectrum where at one end she works closely with artists as part of her ethnographic research, and on the other she tries to find a critical distance to write about their art. The results of this journey will be an intimate and academic; personal and public creative ethnography: The Lure of the Social: encounters with contemporary artists (Intellect Ltd, 2019).