Overview
Lucy joined Bangor as Reader in Law in 2022. Prior to joining, Lucy was Senior Lecturer in Law and Art at Sussex Law School (2013-2022), and held positions at Birkbeck School of Law University of London (2007-2012) and Exeter Law School (2012-2013). Lucy has been a visiting scholar and researcher at Law School, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Jul 2023); WZB, Social Science Research Institute Berlin (Jun 2013), amongst others.
Lucy’s research is broadly concerned with critical legal and contemporary philosophical understandings of law in relation to questions of practice and materialism. Themes of aesthetics, property, entropy and resistance are key within Lucy's work.
Always with a desire to apply theory to practice, Lucy's work has focused in recent years on methodological and practice-based questions around the intersection of art, law, resistance and property (see 'Art' - New Trajectories in Law Series (series editors Adam Gearey and Colin Perrin) (forthcoming, 2024) (London, Routledge).
Since 2015 Lucy has been involved in developing the Economic and Social Resaerch Council and Socio-Legal Studies Association funded 'Art/Law Network', a meeting space between artists, activists, lawyers, practitioners and other such agitators.
Part of Lucy's work is practice-based, including working with sound, video, sculpture and data sets, as part of project 'Instrumenting(s)' in collaboration with Anders Hulkjvist (University of Gothenburg) and Dann Hignell-Tully (Distant Animals). The practice-based element of her work is inspired by her work as a speculative artist whose work seeks to capture ontological questions around artificial and formal divides – the human/machine, subject/object, divisions between art and law.
Underlying her work is a philosophical probing of the nature of property, materiality and entropic forces of change. This culminated in monograph 'Protest, Property and the Commons: Performances of Law and Resistance' (Routledge, 2016) which theorises the intersection of property within law and resistance, interrogating the spatio-temporality and aesthetics of formal and informal laws, property (squatting and housing), commons and protest. Lucy uses the thermodynamic property 'entropy' to explain linear and nonlinear relations of matter, law, resistance, aesthetics informed by speculative realism, historical and new materialist philosophy and complexity theory.
Additional Contact Information
l.finchett-maddock@bangor.ac.uk
Teaching and Supervision
Lucy is the convenor of LLM module Contemporary Issues in International Environmental Law, and undergraduate module Environmental Law. She also convenes undergraduate module Law, Justice and Rights.
Research Interests
Select Works
Books and Edited Collections
Art - New Trajectories in Law Series (series editors Adam Gearey and Colin Perrin) (forthcoming, 2024) (London, Routledge)
The Practice and Process Art/Law Symposium Special Edition Law and Humanities with Jack Ky Tan (2022) 16(2) 156-280
Art, Law, Power: Perspectives on Legality and Resistance in Contemporary Aesthetics (2020) with Eleftheria Lekakis (London, Counterpress)
Protest, Property and the Commons - Performances of Law and Resistance (2016) Social Justice Books Series (London, Routledge)
Articles and Book Chapters
Inside-Out: Autonomy, Formalism and the Legal Architectures of Outsider Art, in Sofia Stolk, Renske Vols, and Miriam Bak McKenna (eds.), International Law and Architecture (Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming, 2025)
Petrified Legality, Percolating Sovereignty: Entropic Aesthetics in Laws of Ice, in Helen Palmer and Charlie Blake (eds.) Special Issue, Thalatta! Thalatta! THE SEA, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities (forthcoming, 2025)
Urban Surfaces Definition in Sabina Andron, Konstantinos Avramidis, Tom Ward (eds.), Urban Surfaces Research Network Volume 3. 2024. 16-19
To Open Up: A performative rewriting of Pendragon v United Kingdom (1998) 27 EHRR CD 17 with Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos in Helen Dancer, Bonnie Holligan and Helena Howe (eds.) Earth Law Judgments Project (Hart, 2024)
Bass, Slate and Spray Paint: On the Edge of, and within, Trespass (2023) Nuart Journal 4(1) 24-35
Forming the Legal Avant-Garde: A Theory of Art/Law (2023) Law Culture and the Humanities 19(2) 320-351
Practice and/or Process? (In)Disciplining Law and Art (2022) in Lucy Finchett-Maddock and Jack Ky Tan (eds.) The Practice and Process Art/Law Symposium Special Edition Law and Humanities 16(2) 156-164
A Poverty of the Spirit? Law, Property and Addiction (2021) in Maria Grahn Farley (ed.) Adam Gearey's Voices on Law and Activism: Addressing the Work of Adam Gearey (Uppsala, De Lege) 141-168
In Vacuums of Law We Find- Outsider Poiesis in Street Art and Graffiti (2019) in D. Chappell and Saskia Hufnagel (eds.) Art Crime Handbook (London, Palgrave MacMillan) 855-880
Continua of (In)Justice (2018) in Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (ed.) Handbook of Law and Theory (London, Routledge) 104-123
Nonlinearity, autonomy and resistant law (2018) in Tom Webb and Stephen Wheatley (eds.) Complexity Theory & Law: Mapping an Emergent Jurisprudence, Law, Science and Society Series (London, Routledge) 213-233
Speculative Entropy - Dynamism, Hyperchaos and the Fourth Dimension in Environmental Law Practice (2018) in Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos and Victoria Brooks (eds.) ‘esearch Methods in Law Series (Handbook of Research Methods in Environmental Law) (London, Edward Elgar Publishing) 104-130
Time's Up – Resisting Private Limitations on Rights to Housing and Protest (2016) in M. Vols and J. Sidoli del Ceno (eds.) Regulating the City: Contemporary Urban Housing Law (The Hague, Eleven Publishing) 81-107
Letters on Legal Architecture (2016), with Léopold Lambert ARCH+ Legislating Architecture Berlin May 14-20 14-21
The Case of the Naughty in Relation to Law (2013) in Elena Loizidou (ed.) Disobedience: Concept and Practice (London, Routledge) 83-97
Seeing Red - Entropy, Property and Resistance in the Summer Riots 2011 (2012) Law and Critique 23(3) 199-217
Postgraduate Project Opportunities
Publications
2024
- Accepted/In pressPetrified Legality, Percolating Sovereignty: Entropic Aesthetics in Laws of Ice
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2024, (Accepted/In press) In: Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review - PublishedUrban Surfaces Definition
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2024
Research output: Other contribution
2023
- PublishedForming the Legal Avant-Garde: A Theory of Art/Law
Finchett-Maddock, L., Jun 2023, In: Law, Culture and the Humanities. 19, 2, p. 320–351
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
2022
- PublishedPractice and/or process? (In)disciplining law and art
Finchett-Maddock, L. & Tan, J. K., 15 Nov 2022, In: Law and Humanities. 16, 2, p. 156-164
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
2021
- PublishedA poverty of the spirit? Law, Property and Addiction
Finchett-Maddock, L., 18 Jun 2021, Voices on Law and Activism: Addressing The Work of Adam Gearey.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
2020
- PublishedArt, law, power: perspectives on legality and resistance in contemporary aesthetics
Finchett-Maddock, L. (Editor) & Lekakis, E. (Editor), 28 Feb 2020, Counterpress. 328 p.
Research output: Book/Report › Book › peer-review - PublishedIntroduction Art, Law, Power: Perspectives on legality and resistance in contemporary aesthetics
Finchett-Maddock, L. (Editor) & Lekakis, E. (Editor), 28 Feb 2020, Counterpress. 328 p.
Research output: Book/Report › Book › peer-review - PublishedThe Life Inertia – Vibration, Sound Sculpture and Transhumanism in the Technological Reliquaries
Finchett-Maddock, L., 3 Dec 2020.
Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
2019
- PublishedIn vacuums of law we find: outsider poiesis in street art and graffiti
Finchett-Maddock, L., 11 Jul 2019, The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime. Palgrave Macmillan
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
2018
- PublishedContinua of (In)Justice
Finchett-Maddock, L., 16 Aug 2018, Routledge Handbook of Law and Theory. Routledge
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review - PublishedNonlinearity, autonomy and resistant law
Finchett-Maddock, L., 31 Jul 2018, Complexity theory & law: mapping an emergent jurisprudence. Routledge, p. 213-233
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
2017
- PublishedArt/Law Network
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2017, The Conscious Lawyer.
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article - PublishedBeauty, Totality, Violent Law
Finchett-Maddock, L., 1 May 2017, The Conscious Lawyer.
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article - PublishedSpeculative entropy: Dynamism, hyperchaos and the fourth dimension in environmental law practice
Finchett-Maddock, L., 24 Nov 2017, Research Methods in Environmental Law: A Handbook. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review - PublishedSquatters’ Rights: A Case Study on ‘Legal Movements’ Theory
Finchett-Maddock, L., 17 Jun 2017, In: Socialist Lawyer. 76, p. 40-45
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
2016
- PublishedLetters on Legal Architecture
Finchett-Maddock, L. & Lambert, L., 1 May 2016, ARCH+, Legislating Architecture.
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article - PublishedProtest, property and the commons: Performances of Law and Resistance
Finchett-Maddock, L., 18 Mar 2016, Routledge. 261 p.
Research output: Book/Report › Book › peer-review - PublishedTime’s up – resisting private limitations on rights to housing and protest
Finchett-Maddock, L., 30 Nov 2016, Regulating the City: Contemporary Urban Housing Law. Eleven International Publishing
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
2014
- PublishedArchitecture and the Law: An Epistolary Exchange With Dr. Lucy Finchett-Maddock
Finchett-Maddock, L. & Lambert, L., 2014, The Funambulist Pamphlets, Legal Theory.
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article - PublishedFracking and the legal and extra-legal in planning procedures
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2014, In: Journal of Planning and Environmental Law.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article - PublishedLaw in numbers: the poiesis of the crowd
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2014, In: Lo Squaderno.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review - PublishedSecuritisation of Property Squatting in Europe
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2014, In: Urban Studies. p. 1-3
Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review - PublishedSquatting in London: squatters’ rights and legal movement(s)
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2014, The City is Ours.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review - PublishedThe changing architectures of adverse possession and a political aesthetics of squatting
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2014, Vulnerable Demons? Moral Rhetoric and the Criminalisation of Squatting. 1st ed. Routledge
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
2013
- PublishedResponding to the private regulation of dissent: Climate changeaction, popular justice and the right to protest
Finchett-Maddock, L., 24 Jul 2013, In: Journal of Environmental Law. 25, 2, p. 293-304
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review - PublishedThe Case of the Naughty in Relation to Law
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2013, Disobedience: Concept and Practice . 1st ed.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
2012
- PublishedSeeing Red: Entropy, Property, and Resistance in the Summer Riots 2011
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2012, In: Law and Critique. 23, p. 199-217
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
2011
- PublishedThe Criminalisation of Squatting
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2011, Corporate Watch.
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
2010
- PublishedFinding space for resistance through legal pluralism: The hidden legality of the uk social centre movement
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2010, Part 1 Papers from the Zürich Conference. p. 31-52 (Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law).
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review
2008
- PublishedAn Anarchist’s Wetherspoons or Virtuous Resistance? Social Centres as MacIntyre’s Vision of Practice-based Communities
Finchett-Maddock, L., 2008, In: Philosophy of Management. 7, 1, p. 21-31
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Other Information
Lucy is Civic Engagement Lead for the School of History, Law and Social Sciences.