Photoworks is launching a new one-day programme of Portfolio & Career Surgeries, offering a chance to receive personalised, one-to-one advice from the Photoworks team.
These 20-minute one-to-one online sessions are designed for lens-based artists and cultural professionals, including creatives, producers, writers, and curators working with photography who want to discuss their practice, challenges and ambitions through supportive and objective conversations.
The surgeries are designed to be accessible and supportive, offering a space grounded in care, clarity, and connection. You can book as many sessions as you’d like with different members of the Photoworks team, drawing on their in-depth expertise across lens-based art and photography, curating, producing, publishing, art writing, art marketing, and socially engaged, participatory practices.
Your surgeries can be approached in different ways, either to tackle a specific project or ambition, or to provide a more general space for exploring your professional goals. See our How to Prepare guide for practical advice and ideas to help shape your session.
Surgeries take place 24 November, online via Zoom at various times between 10am – 4pm GMT.
Scroll down to book your surgeries!
The surgeries are open to creatives at any stage in their careers working across the cultural sector, including lens-based artists, curators, producers, writers, arts coordinators, facilitators, learning programmers, arts marketers, and community engagement professionals.
Sessions can be booked individually or in bundles of up to four, with discounts applied at checkout: 1 session for £35, 2 sessions for £63 (10% off), 3 sessions for £89.25 (15% off), and 4 sessions for £112 (20% off). To book more than four sessions and receive further discounts, you’ll need to start a new bundle at checkout.
Photoworks Friends save even more — 20% extra off all sessions and discounted bundles. To become a Friend, simply add the Photoworks Friends membership to your cart at checkout, and the discount will activate automatically. If you’re already a Friend, the discount applies as usual.
For support contact info@photoworks.org.uk
Photoworks is an Arts Council NPO and registered charity; all proceeds from the surgeries support our ongoing developmental work and opportunities for artists and young people.
We’re offering two bursary places, each covering three free surgery sessions. In 50 words please explain why you would like to apply. Email us at info@photoworks.org.uk
We’ve put together a How to Prepare document for more information, including details about an optional form you can complete to help us tailor your session to your priorities.
Photoworks Curator
Danit Ariel is an artist, writer and curator, whose practice looks into how art can create new ways of meeting. She is the author of Nayah: Empathy as an Act of Resistance which explores the role of gender in practices of empathy; and All the Tables are Brown, looking more specifically at language as both a bridge and barrier between communities. As Photoworks’ curator, she mentors artists in developing new work and manages the curatorial programme and Photoworks Festival.
Areas of expertise:
Conceptual and spatial curation, practice-based research, interdisciplinary research, positioning of one’s practice within the field, peer-to-peer crits and photographic community building, combining visual and textual languages, photo book editing and sequencing.
Photoworks Photo Champions Producer
Sebah Chaudhry is an independent producer and curator, working with organisations and artists internationally. She has worked in photography for over 20 years. She is director of Sebahtage, a new organisation supporting artists and writers from under-represented backgrounds. She currently works with Photoworks as Producer of the Photography Champions Programme. She is an advisory member of FORMAT Festival, where she also worked for over 10 years, and a Trustee at The Royal Photographic Society.
Areas of expertise:
Can offer varied support on existing and new project ideas and can support with development of projects including editing, curating as well as provide feedback on projects. Can also offer tips on how to apply for open calls – how to present yourself and your portfolio.
Photoworks Director
Louise has been the Director of Photoworks since 2023, where she leads the strategic vision and artistic direction of the organisation. She is the co-founder/former director of FORMAT Festival. Previously, she was artistic director at QUAD, a centre for contemporary art and film; national curator of contemporary art, Forestry England, and currently jury chair of Earth Photo with the Royal Geographical Society, Forestry England and Parker Harris. As a creative director since 1998 Louise has curated commissions, festivals, publications, mass participation projects, exhibitions; she has also juried and mentored worldwide.
Areas of expertise:
Professional creative practice for artists, photographers, curators, writers, project managers and producers, including photography portfolios, curatorial, writing, project management, editing, sequencing series, festivals, photobooks, ideas and general professional development, socially engaged, participatory, installations, performance, interdisciplinary, collaborative, worldbuilding practices and more. Open to discussing any work at any stage of development.
Photoworks Digital Manager
Natalia is a photographic artist based in London. Her practice stems from a curiosity about connections, as she explores spaces and our relationships to them. With a focus on the power of representation, her work centres on women’s narratives, power structures, and their intersections with citizenship and migration. Working primarily in social documentary photography, she often adopts a socially engaged approach, combining photographs with text. Natalia holds an MA on Photography and Urban Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London, and currently works as the Digital Manager at Photoworks.
Areas of expertise:
Documentary photography, socially engaged photography, portraits and collaboration, ethics in photography, research-based practice, project development, digital marketing, website design.
Photoworks Programme Producer
Josie is a freelance programme producer and arts manager based in London. At Photoworks, she shapes and delivers the public programme, including events, artist commissions, and curatorial projects, whilst also leading on audience development strategies and initiatives. With a decade of experience across the visual arts, design, film, and media production sectors, Josie’s work spans cultural production, programme management, marketing and PR, audience strategy, and business development. She has a particular interest in interdisciplinary programming, sustainable production practices, and fostering meaningful relationships between artists, organisations and audiences.
Areas of expertise:
Career pathways in arts management; programme strategy and delivery; festival and event management, artist commissions and residencies; audience development; membership strategy; marketing and communications; relationship and partnership development; interdisciplinary and cross-sector working; sustainable production processes.
Photoworks Editor (Annual)
Diane Smyth is Editor of the British Journal of Photography and the Photoworks Annual. She also teaches History and Theory of Photography at the London College of Communications, University of the Arts London, and has given talks and workshops at institutions such as London School of Economics and King’s College London. Diane has written about photography for publications such as The Guardian, FT Weekend Magazine, Aperture, FOAM, Trigger, Apollo and The Art Newspaper, and contributed essays to many photography catalogues and monographs. She originally studied for a BA in English Language and Literature at the University of Birmingham, graduating with a First and the Tibbatt’s Memorial Prize. She also holds an MA in Modern Literatures in English from Birkbeck College, University of London, taken while working full time.
Areas of expertise:
Documentary, conceptual, and long-term work, plus practices around materiality.
Photoworks Assistant Curator
Amin Yousefi, born in 1996 in Abadan, Iran, is a London-based writer, researcher, and image-based artist. His practice focuses on the implications of archival processes, methods for reversing imperial violence in the Middle East, and how photography can conceptually mirror complex power structures. In 2024, Yousefi received the Royal Photographic Society Award for Achievement in the Art of Photography in recognition of a notable personal achievement in the art of photography. Yousefi has been working as the Assistant Curator and Editor of Photography+ for Photoworks since 2024.
Areas of expertise:
Image-based practices, counter-archival and postcolonial image strategies, documentary photography, expanded photography, collaborative photography on ethics and representation, critical writing, curatorial and exhibition programming, interdisciplinary collaborations.
Phoebe and Juliette are running their surgery sessions together
Photoworks Head of Learning and Engagement
Juliette leads the learning & engagement programme at Photoworks. She is also co-director for Corridor, an arts organisation connecting artists, people and places through lens based participatory projects. A creative learning/arts professional based in Bannau Brycheiniog but working across the UK, Juliette has twenty-five years of experience in the cultural sector increasing opportunities for people to engage with art and artists, with a passion for projects that bring people together around a new idea to enable creative agency. Juliette is a trained art teacher, recipient of the Marsh Award for Excellence in gallery education, an editorial advisory board member for the Engage Journal and Trustee for Ffotogallery in Cardiff.
Areas of expertise:
Current education landscape, strategic planning (learning programme development), fundraising, arts participation, schools and community engagement, socially engaged practice.
Photoworks Learning & Engagement Administrator
Phoebe Wingrove is an artist using abstract photography and mixed media to ethically visualise women and assigned female at birth (AFAB) peoples’ health experiences. She holds a BA in Graphic Design from Nottingham Trent University, which significantly influences the visual communication seen in her work. In 2022, she completed a PGCE at the University of Brighton, fueling her passion for raising awareness and creating educational opportunities about women and AFAB peoples’ health through art. Alongside her art practice, Phoebe has worked in the arts and culture sector for 6 years, working as both a photographer and a learning coordinator.
Areas of expertise:
Visual communication, storytelling, installations, networking, documentation / content creation of exhibitions, abstract photography, ethical representation, schools and community engagement, arts facilitation
