Jacob Badcock is an art historian specialising in ecocritical approaches to modern and contemporary art and visual culture.
His PhD research, funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, explores how documentary photography shapes representations of environmental 鈥渃risis鈥 zones in the Global South. Working at the intersection of art history, anthropology, and discard studies, he examined how photographic portrayals of Agbogbloshie鈥攁n e-waste processing site in Accra, Ghana鈥攈ave informed 鈥済reen鈥 interventions by international NGOs seeking to reduce e-waste pollution. Drawing on a wide range of visual sources, including colonial photographic archives, medical photography, 鈥渙perational鈥 imagery, amateur photography, art photography, and photojournalism, his project argued for听 the constitutive role of the camera in the police- and military-backed demolition of Agbogbloshie in July 2021. This event, he argued, echoed the use of photography to legitimise colonial-era 鈥渟lum鈥 clearances in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In doing so, his research highlights the enduring relationship between visual representation, environmental governance, and colonial geography that continues to shape urban space in African cities.
Before joining the 91自拍, Jacob taught at the Slade School of Fine Art and University College London. His research has been widely published, with work appearing in Burlington Contemporary Journal, Journal of Visual Culture, and the edited volume Performance: The Ethics and the Politics of Conservation and Care (Routledge, 2023). He currently co-chairs the NatureCulture Lab reading group, an interdisciplinary research collective run in partnership with the Hochschule der K眉nste Bern (HKB).
Jacob is a Teaching Fellow and course leader for the MA Special Option Global Conceptualism: The Last Avant-Garde or a New Beginning? and the BA3 course Modern, Postmodern, and Digital Photography. He welcomes undergraduate dissertation projects on any aspect of modern and contemporary art history, with particular interest in Marxist and ecocritical approaches.
Studies
BA, History, First Class Honours, University of Warwick (2014-2017).
MA, History of Art, Distinction, 91自拍, (2017-18).
PhD, History of Art, University College London (London Arts and Humanities Partnership Doctoral Training Award), (2021-2026).
Publications
Peer-Reviewed
Badcock, Jacob. ‘Performing the 鈥楳ask鈥: Kongo Astronauts (El茅onore Hellio and Michel Ekeba) on Postcolonial Entanglements – A Conversation with Hanna B. H枚lling, Emilie Magnin, and Valerian Maly,’ In Performance: The Ethics and the Politics of Conservation and Care, Volume I, (London: Routledge, 2023).
Badcock, Jacob, 鈥楶hotography After Discard Studies鈥,听Burlington Contemporary,听Issue 7, (November 2022).
Other Publications
Badcock, Jacob, ‘Agbogbloshie: Resonances in the Colonial Archive,’听The Polyphony: Conversations Across the Medical Humanities,听(April, 2025)
Badcock, Jacob. 鈥楨xtractivism: Ben Asamoah鈥檚 Sakawa (2018) and the Problem of e-Waste鈥, ed. Eray 脟ayl谋,听Journal of Visual Culture Magazine,听(September 2022).
Badcock, Jacob, and Owusu-Nepaul, Jovan. 鈥業n the Wake of Colston: Wake Work After Woke Work鈥,听Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art, Issue 1, (Summer 2021), pp.137-141.
Conference Papers
Badcock, Jacob, and Perryman-Owens, Elsa, 鈥淏urning Matters: The Limits of the Image in a World on Fire,鈥 Association for Art History Annual Conference, University of York, 9-11 April 2025.
Badcock, Jacob, 鈥淢easuring Exposure, Exposure to Measuring: Photovoice and the Civil Contract of Photography at Agbogbloshie.鈥 Association for Art History Annual Conference, University of Bristol, 4 April 2024.
Badcock, Jacob. 鈥淧ermanent Error: Photography, Colonial Land Relations, and the Problem of e-Waste in Ghana.鈥 The Materials of Modernity, Newnham College, University of Cambridge, July 16, 2022.
Badcock, Jacob. 鈥淭he Problem of e-Waste in Ghana.鈥 Past Imperfect: Conversations in Ecological Form, University College London, November 17, 2021.
Badcock, Jacob. 鈥淐annibalising Hegel.鈥 Violence, Aesthetics, Anthropocenes: Colonialism, Racism, Extractivism, London School of Economics, April 1, 2021
