Elaine Speight is Reader in Curatorial Practice and Place at the University of Central Lancashire, where she co-curates the In Certain Places public art programme and is co-director of the Institute of Creativity, Communities & Culture.

Elaine’s research surrounds the politics of public space: who gets to make decisions about how our cities are managed and designed and how artists can help us to reimagine and reclaim our environments. Since becoming a mother in 2017, Elaine has become particularly interested in the experiences of parents. She developed the Feed project to promote inclusive, sustainable approaches to infant feeding and public space and to challenge negative social attitudes towards human milk and mothering.

Elaine is a trustee of the Cumbria-based arts organisation Art Gene and co-editor of the Journal of Arts & Communities.