Personal profile

Overview

David Kefford is an artist, Senior Lecturer and DFA candidate at the University of Hertfordshire whose research-led, transdisciplinary practice explores sculpture as hybrid, bodily entities that endure, weather, and transform through co-creation with more-than-human agents. His work engages queer ecology, posthumanist theory, and material sustainability, seeking alternatives to extractive and permanent Western traditions of outdoor sculpture.

Kefford’s practice operates at the intersection of low-tech improvisation and emerging digital methods, combining readymade, discarded, and biodegradable materials with 3D printing, scanning, and augmented reality. His sculptural entities are conceived as Cthonic Ones - mutant, otherworldly forms that weather, decay, and regenerate in relation to seasonal change, ecological cycles, and human/nonhuman entanglement.

The garden plays a central role as a living laboratory and heterotopic site for this research. Here, sculptures are exposed to the rhythms of time, growth, collapse, and renewal., situating the work within broader ecological cycles.

Research interests

Queer Ecology and Posthumanism in contemporary art

Hybrid bodily entities and sculptural mutability

Weather as material and seasonal change as co-creator

Permaculture principles in artistic practice, including “produce no waste” and regenerative cycles

Material sustainability: recycling, circular processes, and “creative composting”

Living archives: documenting transformation, decay, and ecological entanglement over time

Nature writing and observational practices as methodologies for ecological attentiveness

Digital–ecological hybridity: 3D printing with eco-PLA, 3D scanning, AR

Gardens as queer-ecological laboratories and heterotopic sites of co-creation

Community collaboration with environmental and cultural organisations

Teaching specialisms

  • Sculpture and installation practice

  • Digital making processes, including AR, 3D scanning and 3D printing with eco-friendly materials

  • Co-creation, collage, assemblage, and improvised methods of making

  • Curating projects and events; collaborative workshops with a range of user groups

  • Interdisciplinary and posthuman approaches to making

  • Queer ecological perspectives in contemporary art

  • Open to collaboration and supervision in related research fields

Commercial and public engagement

David has exhibited widely in galleries, museums, festivals, biennials and art fairs, with work held in both private and public collections. His practice extends into event-based and socially engaged activities, including talks, symposia, and discussion groups. He has delivered hands-on making workshops with diverse user groups and curates collaborative projects that bring communities together around contemporary art practice.

Education/Academic qualification

Fine Art, MA, The University of Brighton

Award Date: 30 Jun 1999

External positions

Member, Royal British Society of Sculptors

1 Jan 20221 Oct 2025

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