Ms Sadie Levy Gale

Overview

I am a PhD candidate at Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media and Culture as part of an AHRC funded Collaborative Doctoral Award with Bristol University and Historic England.  

My research bridges the intersections of urban history, medical history and visual culture. In my thesis, I explore how a variety of urban building types (the factory, the slum, social housing and the health centre) and their users have been imagined and represented through lens-based media in the first half of the twentieth century. Particularly, I am interested in how the visualisation of these environments as 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' spatial realms has been central to the production of cultural discourses on the connections between citizenship, health, and urban life. 

More widely, I am interested in histories of colonial photography. My debut article for Cultural and Social History, titled 'Hiding in Plain Sight: Indigenous Repression and Resistance in Photographs of the 1901 Royal Tour of Canada', explored Indigenous representation in photographs of the royal tour of Canada in 1901. This was the result of a three month UKRI-funded research placement in Montreal.

I have written about my research for Aeon, The Wellcome Collection, and Historic England, among others. I have also collaborated on interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of the social history of medicine and visual culture. Most recently, I contributed an article to Views from Convalescent Hill, a project that illuminates the heritage of rest, well-being, and care in Felixstowe.

Prior to joining Cardiff, I worked at an exhibition design agency as a content developer for museums and heritage organisations. I completed my MA in History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London, and my BA in English Literature and Language at Oxford University.