Violeta Tsenova is an interdisciplinary researcher with expertise in cultural heritage, design, public history, and film. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher on the grant-project Public History as the New Citizen Science of the Past (PHACS). Her current research focuses on contributing to theoretical and practical debates on the concept of shared authority through the lens of feminist and design praxis.
Violeta obtained her PhD from Newcastle University, UK (2022) with a thesis titled Designing with Genius Loci. Her PhD explored the many intersections between Human Computer Interaction and heritage interpretation with the aim of achieving and designing for critical polyvocality. She used design methods to co-create three prototypes that inquire into possible interaction paradigms that nuance accepted forms of historical narratives presented at cultural heritage sites. “Designing with Genius Loci” is Violeta’s proposed approach that offers guidance and considers how more typical discourses of the past influence how divergent knowledges are presented in design artefacts.
As part of her PhD, Violeta carried out an Arts and Humanities Research Council placement with Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, NYC, USA. She worked closely with the Interaction Lab – a research and development unit – on the prototyping of new digitally mediated experiences that capture socially-generated knowledge and index it, creating another set of pathways through the physical museum that could also contribute to online collections.
Violeta holds an MSc in International Heritage Visualisation from the Glasgow School of Art, UK (2017), and a joint-honours bachelor's degree, awarded as MA in Digital Media and Information Studies/ Film and TV Studies from the University of Glasgow, UK (2015).