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 26 November, online via Zoom at various times between 10am – 4pm GMT.
Scroll down to book your surgeries!
Bookings are available until midnight on 19 November.
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 get 20% more off all bundles
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.
- Browse the team and choose sessions with different mentors
- Select your time slots and complete the payment
- Receive email confirmation
- Zoom online meeting links will be sent via email ahead of your surgery session
- Join at your scheduled times
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.
Bursary places
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.
Danit Ariel
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.
Sebah Chaudhry
Photoworks Special Projects Producer
Sebah 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 through events, commissions and development programmes. She currently works with Photoworks as Special Projects Producer. 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.
Debbie Cooper
Photoworks Deputy Director
Debbie Cooper became Photoworks’ new Deputy Director in October 2025, Debbie is also an artist, producer, fundraiser, and curator. Previously a curator and producer for FORMAT Photography Festival, Manager of the Photographic Collections Network, she has worked on national and international photography projects in China, India and Australia, and was the producer for FORMAT21 online festival. Debbie has also worked for arts institutions on public engagement projects and programmes, having fundraised and led many national and international public engagement projects.
Areas of expertise:
Professional creative practice, project development, and fundraising. Opportunity development including residencies and business development. Public engagement and participation. Open to discussing any work at any stage of development.
Louise Fedotov-Clements
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.
Diane Smyth
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.
Amin Yousefi
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.
Juliette Buss
Head of Learning & Engagement, Photoworks
Juliette leads the learning & engagement programme at Photoworks. She is co-director at Corridor, an arts organisation connecting artists, people and places through lens based participatory projects. Juliette has twenty-five years 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, and the Royal Photographic Award for Photography with Young People. Juliette is Chair of the Board at Ffotogallery.
Areas of expertise:
Fundraising, participatory and socially engaged project and practice development, strategic planning (programme development), schools and community engagement.
Carolina Semprucci
Digital Manager, Photoworks
Carolina is a writer, editorial graphic designer and educator currently based in London. Working internationally across cultural and commercial projects, her practice combines arts & photography, design for publishing, and writing. She has collaborated with a range of clients and organisations including Der Greif, PhMuseum, The Photographers Gallery, London College of Communication, Kult Books, the Future Justice Project, and The Justice Gap. Since 2022, Semprucci has been a visiting practitioner for the Journalism and Publishing course at LCC and was Writer in Residence at Photoworks for 2025-2026. Semprucci has been working as the Assistant Editor for Der Greif since April 2025, and is currently Digital Manager at Photoworks.
Areas of expertise:
Project statements, project development & enhancement, book and magazine design, photo book editing and sequencing, open call applications.
John Macpherson
Visual Arts Relationship Manager,
Arts Council England
John is a Visual Arts funding advisor and Relationship Manager for Arts Council England in the Southeast, bringing over 20 years of philanthropy experience across museums, galleries, and libraries. He assists regional artists and organisations with grants and strategic planning. He has worked with British Council, Historic England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, community foundations, and various international cultural institutes.
Areas of expertise:
Grant application tips for Arts Council England programs on existing and new project ideas. Advice for securing other regional arts funding in the Southeast.
Surgery sessions with John are free of charge and are booked separately from any bundles you purchase.
Max Kandhola
Associate Professor,
Nottingham Trent University
Max is a photographer and Associate Professor at Nottingham Trent University whose practice interrogates race, representation, identity and difference (RRID). Employing an intersectional framework, his work examines cultural displacement, advancing counternarratives that unsettle hegemonic discourses and restore visibility to underrepresented communities. His current research explores botanical taxonomy, the aging male body and male grief through haiku poetry and photography, deploying synthetic glitch “ghosts” to probe memory’s instability. Max is council member of FACE and represented by PhotoInk Delhi India.
Areas of expertise:
Practice-based research, support developing long term projects, development of photobooks, working towards exhibition and grant funding, ethically concerned work, critical writing and professional practice .