Dr Ali Ramsey
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Overview
Overview
Biography
Dr Ali Ramsey is Module Convenor and Associate Lecturer for Working with Found Footage. She is also a documentary filmmaker, researcher and creative producer specialising in archive and found footage filmmaking, oral history, and creative approaches to documentary practice. Ali also has experience in research impact and knowledge exchange, having worked for two years as a part-time Research Impact Assistant on Professor Joanna Callaghan’s AHRC Impact Accelerator Account-funded Goodbye Breasts! project at the University of Sussex, supporting audience engagement, partnerships and impact activities around the documentary film and installation.
With a background in documentary production at the BBC, Ali co-founded Digital Drama, an award-winning multimedia production company creating films, audio and live experiences for broadcasters, museums, heritage organisations and the public sector. The company has been commissioned by organisations including The National Archives, English Heritage, the Royal Albert Hall, British Red Cross and the Museum of London, and has secured funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England for community heritage and arts projects that combine research with creative public engagement.
Ali holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Practice from the University of Sussex. Her practice-led research culminated in the documentary Menopause: The Movie, which has received awards and international festival nominations. The project explored media representations of menopause through archive documentary and oral history, examining the creative and critical potential of archives, montage and filmmaking. Her academic writing has been published in The Sociological Review.
Alongside her work at Birkbeck, Ali has taught humanities at The Open University and previously worked as a Senior Faculty Manager and Broadcast Project Manager, developing educational media in partnership with the BBC.
Web profiles
Honours and awards
- Adam Weiler Impact Award University of Sussex, July 2023
ORCID
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Research
Research
Research interests
- Found footage and archival filmmaking
- Archives, memory and cultural representation
- Documentary filmmaking and creative practice
- Feminist media studies
- Menopause, ageing and screen representation
- Oral history, testimony and lived experience
- Digital storytelling and public engagement
Research overview
Ali Ramsey’s research explores how documentary film and creative practice can generate new understandings of lived experience, memory and social change. Her work is particularly concerned with the representation of marginalised or under-represented experiences, and with the ways in which archival materials, oral testimony and creative methods can challenge dominant narratives.
Her doctoral research examined found footage and archival filmmaking as approaches to reimagining screen representations of menopause. Through a practice-led methodology combining documentary filmmaking, creative reuse and interview testimony, the project explored how film can create new forms of cultural representation and contribute to conversations around ageing, gender, health and identity.
Ali’s current research interests include documentary practice, archival reuse, oral history, feminist media studies, memory and representation. She is interested in collaborative research with academics, filmmakers, cultural organisations and community partners, particularly projects exploring creative health, social change, and creative approaches to public engagement.
She welcomes opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration nationally and internationally, particularly in relation to creative practice research, documentary and archival filmmaking, and the use of film as a means of knowledge exchange.
Research Centres and Institutes
Research projects
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Teaching
Teaching modules
- Working with Found Footage