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Biography

Isabelle is a Lecturer and Interdisciplinary Fellow in the Department of Art History and Interdisciplinary Institute.  She is associated with the Environment and Biodiversity Challenge Area. At Aberdeen, Isabelle is Co-Director for The Centre for the North and is affiliated with the Cryosphere and Climate Change Research Group.

She is a specialist in landscape and environmental art history from around the Circumpolar North and from 1800 to the present day. Her current research looks at the intersections between art and environment in the study of historic and contemporary printmaking and drawing made by Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists in the North American Arctic. 

Isabelle is the PI for the British Academy funded project From the Floe Edge, in collaboration with Dr Sarah Cooley (Duke University) and the West Baffin Co-operative in Kinngait, Nunavut. She is also the co-lead for the project with Dr Jonathan Peyton at the University of Manitoba. Isabelle also sits on the Social and Human Working Group for the International Arctic Science Committee. 

Isabelle is an Editor for the (NiCHE), where she also convenes the Visual Cultures of the Circumpolar North (VCCN) series. Prior to joining Aberdeen, Isabelle was an Arts & Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto where she co-lead the VCCN Working Group, funded by the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto (2021-24). She received her PhD from the University of York in 2019.

To date, Isabelle is the author of one book (2024) with a second book under contract, and has published more than eleven single-author/co-author papers and numerous public humanities essays. She has also co-authored an additional papers with colleagues in the fields of art and architectural history, environmental history, geography and glaciology.

Research Overview

My research leads with the visual material. I write about small sketches and large-scale paintings, drawings and prints, canonical and lesser-known works, many displayed or archived in collections around the Circumpolar North. I consider the material, cultural and environmental entanglements of landscape painting and environmental visual cultures through a variety of media from 1850 to the present day.

Drawn largely towards coastlines, my research moves from watercolours to photography, oil paintings, prints, graphite, charcoal and ink drawings, driftwood, and sealskin and emphasises how these distinct material processes highlight different facets of terrestrial and marine environments. By working collaboratively with other disciplines, primarily geography and glaciology, this research expands upon these material and disciplinary boundaries and contributes an exchange of ideas and expertise across intellectual areas. Throughout my work, thinking ecocritically about art history means reshaping traditional narratives to offer historical interlocutors or laboratories that contend with environmental histories and current, global crises. 

Funding and Grants

2024         British Academy Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research Projects – Awarded for From the Floe Edge (KF8\230008). PI: Isabelle Gapp (Univ. of Aberdeen). Co-PI: Sarah Cooley (Univ. of Oregon). Co-partner: Kinngait Studios, West Baffin Co-Op, Nunavut. (£259,117.32)

2024         NERC-Arctic Office UK-Greenland Research Bursary – Awarded for Voices on Ice (part of Teaching Arctic Environments). PI: Isabelle Gapp (Univ. of Aberdeen). Co-PI: Penny How (GEUS, Nuuk). (£12,675.28)

2024          University of Manitoba - University Program & Project Seed Fund (UIPPSF) – Awarded for Teaching  Arctic Environments. PI: Jonathan Peyton (Univ. of Manitoba). Co-PI: Isabelle Gapp (Univ. of Aberdeen). ($10,000CAD)

2023          51cg Internal Funding to Pump-Prime Research and Research Networks – Award for Networking building within the UArctic consortium. (£4795)

2023            Arctic Connections Fund 2023-24, Scottish Government (£8159). For Teaching Arctic Environments with University of Washington and University of Manitoba.

2023            New Foundation for Art History Publication Grant (£3060)

2022            Kungliga Patriotiska Sällskapet (Royal Patriotic Society) Publication Grant, Sweden (£1650)

2022            Association for Art History Scholarly Research Grant (£500)

2021-24      Jackman Humanities Institute Working Group (£5400)

2021            Association for Art History Scholarly Research Grant (£600)