​Staff information

Jem studied photography at the London College of Printing and subsequently worked as a photographer and designer at the Arnolfini, Bristol before beginning his teaching career at Falmouth School of Art in 1982. His photographic works are made at sites close to where he lives and involve many years of walking and revisiting the same locations over and over again. As the works progress he builds narrative sequences of pictures and texts which are presented in books and exhibitions.

His books include:

David is a writer, curator and editor, who has worked in the field of photography and the visual arts for nearly thirty years. He was Assistant Curator of Photography at the National Portrait Gallery, London (1982-1989); Exhibitions Organiser (1989-91) and then Head of Exhibitions (1991-95) at The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Projects Manager at the Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) (1995-1997); and for thirteen years from 1997 to 2010 Director of Photoworks, Brighton. In 2009 he was Chair of the Selection Committee for the Hasselblad International Award. He has written widely on photography for many books and journals, including recently an extended essay on Paul Graham: “A thing there was that mattered…” for the major survey of the artist’s work published by SteidlMack in 2009. David instigated, and has been series Editor for, the Photoworks/Steidl monographs Recent/forthcoming essays: Anna Fox, Photographs 1983-2007 Dryden Goodwin, Cast Paul Graham, Beyond Caring Rinko Kawauchi, Illuminance

Programme Leader - MRes Photography
Liz Wells writes and lectures on photographic practices. She edited
The Photography Reader (2003), and Photography: A Critical Introduction (2009, 4th ed.) and is also co-editor of photographies, Routledge journals.

Exhibitions as curator include Landscapes of Exploration, recent British art from Antarctica (February – March 2012); Chrystel Lebas and SofijaSilvia - Conversations on Nature (Rijeka, Croatia, 2011); Facing East, Contemporary Landscape Photography from Baltic Areas (UK tour 2004 - 2007). She is guest curator for an exhibition of landscape photography from European Union nations (forthcoming BOZAR, Brussels, 2012).

Publications on landscape include: Liz Wells, ed. Landscapes of Exploration (2012), Liz Wells, Land Matters, Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity (2011) and Liz Wells, Kate Newton and Catherine Fehily, eds, Shifting Horizons, Women’s Landscape Photography Now (2000). Essays on photographers exploring people and place include ‘Questions of Distance’ in Temporary Taxonomy (2011, Venice, Cyprus Pavilion), ‘Potent Portraits’ in Michelle Sank, The Submerged (2011); ‘Iceblink: in search of a contemporary sublime’ in Anne Noble, Spoolhenge (2011); ‘Silent Landscape’ EXIT 38 (Spring 2010); ‘Figures in a Landscape’, Trine Søndergaard and Nicolai Howalt, How to Hunt (2010); ‘The Extraordinary Everyday’, Marte Aas, (2010); ‘Poetics and Silence’, Jorma Puranen, Icy Prospects. (2009).

She is Professor in Photographic Culture, Faculty of Arts, University of Plymouth, UK, and convenes the research group for Land/Water and the Visual Arts. www.landwater-research.co.uk​

Stephen’s photographic work engages with ideas connected to geology, archaeology, history and memory. He is concerned, on one level, with the scrutiny of natural processes and phenomena and, on another level, with the landscape as a site of encounter and revelation. In Ultima Thule, the persistent human urge to explore unknown territory is considered within the context of complex geological processes, over vast periods of time. Tectonic shifts in the Earth’s crust are the invisible engine of change, evidenced here in volcanic fissures and steaming sulphurous pools. Stephen’s photographs scrutinise the Earth as it emerges and forms, and as it is sculpted by glacial ice. The potential for transformation from beneath the surface or beyond the threshold is central to this exploration. As

part of this work, he took part in an expedition to the sub-glacial volcano Grimsvotn in Iceland, with a team of glaciologists, volcanologists and earth scientists. In his recent series, A Catfish Sleeps, Stephen has extended this enquiry into the Earth’s tectonic systems to the complex geology of Japan. This work begins to examine the ways in which human beings manage the potentially catastrophic effects of shifts in the underlying geology. Volcanic and seismically active landscapes become sites of spectacle, fear, worship and control. Stephen’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the UK and internationally.