Former Photoworks Director and HOUSE Biennial Curator, Celia Davies, talks with photographic artist Natasha Caruana about her 2017 HOUSE/Photoworks co-commission, 'Timely Tale', plus her wider practice.
Natasha Caruana is a photographic artist living and working in London. She has an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art, London and is a Senior Lecturer of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK.
Caruana’s art practice is grounded in research concerned with narratives of love, betrayal and fantasy. Significant to all Caruana’s work is the questioning of how today’s technology is impacting relationships.
The newly commissioned, Divorce Index, shows at FACT Gallery, Liverpool, until 1 October. The piece is a culmination of the work made during her residency at the Open Data Institute, as part of the Data as Culture Programme 2015/16.
In 2014 Caruana was named as the winner of the prestigious BMW Artist in Residence Award at Musée Nicéphore Niépce, France. The award led to solo shows at Les Rencontres d’Arles and Paris Photo and the monograph Coup de Foudre.
Her work has been shown across Australia, China, France, India, Lithuania, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Her series Married Man and Fairytale for Sale has been included in numerous contemporary photographic catalogues, printed as monographs, and has toured widely, most recently alongside Public, Private, Secret at the International Center for Photography Museum, New York, 2016, The Real Thing, Flowers Gallery, New York, 2016, Photo50 – Feminine Masculine, London, 2016.
Celia Davies, former Director of Photoworks and Brighton Photo Biennial.
Recent major projects include co-founding the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards in 2015 and Brighton Photo Biennials 2012, 2014 and 2016.
Celia was Head of Exhibitions at the De La Warr Pavilion, 2002-2009 where she led the visual arts programme strategy through major capital refurbishment of the Grade 1 listed building.
Other selected projects include Your Views, Gillian Wearing (2016), The British Library by Yinka Shonibare (2013) and Brighton Palermo Remix by David Batchelor for Brighton Festival (2012), This Storm is What We Call Progress by Ori Gersht (2012), Imperial War Museum, London and curated projects include Myth, Manners and Memory: Photographs of the American South including Walker Evans, William Eggleston, William Christenberry Carrie Mae Weems, Susan Lipper and Alec Soth (2010), Beuys Is Here co-curated with Anthony d’ Offay (2009), Kenneth and Mary Martin, Constructed Works (2008) and Jeremy Deller (2006). Commissions include Mumuration Rinko Kawauchi and Brighton Picture Hunt Alec Soth (2010), Seascape Susan Collins (2009) and Palace Nathan Coley (2008).
She has been editor of numerous publications including the Photoworks Monograph series in partnership with Steidl on Sophy Rickett, Dan Holdsworth, Gareth McConnell and Nigel Shafran and co-editor of Photoworks Annual.
Celia has been visual art advisor for HOUSE Biennial since 2009 and sits on the Arts and Creative Industries Commission for Brighton and Hove.
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