LUCY SOUTTER
London-based artist, critic and art historian
email: lucy.soutter@gmail.com
twitter: @LucySoutter
Principal Lecturer/Course Leader Photography Arts MA, University of Westminster
Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
click here for pdf version of the cv (get free adobe reader)
EDUCATION
University of the Arts, London
Research Supervisor Training, 2009
Post-Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Art and Design, 2007
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Ph.D., Department of the History of Art, 2001, M.A., 1996
Thesis: The Visual Idea: Photography in Conceptual Art
California Institute of the Arts,
Valencia, CA
M.F.A., Photography, 1993
Harvard College, Cambridge, MA
B.A., magna cum laude, 1990
Combined concentration: Visual and Environmental Studies, English and American Literature
ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT
University of Westminster, School of Media Arts and Design, London
Principal Lecturer, Course Leader, MA Photography Arts (since 2016)
Responsibilities include convening Westminster Photography Forum public talks series since 2017
Lesley University College of Art and Design, Boston
Visiting Critic, MFA Photography (2016-2018)
Royal College of Art, London
Tutor, MA and PhD, Critical and Historical Studies (2008-2010)
Member Academic Standards Committee (2012-2016)
Sotheby’s Institute, London
Visiting Lecturer, MA Photography (2008-2010)
London College of Communication, London
Senior Lecturer, Photographic Theory, BA and MA Photography (2004-2008)
Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, High Wycombe
Senior Lecturer, BA Fine Art, Faculty of Design (2001-Autumn)
Yale University, New Haven
CT
Lecturer, The History of Photography: A Practical Darkroom Course (2000)
The State University of New York, Purchase
Lecturer, The History of Photography (1998)
| SELECTED CRITICAL AND ACADEMIC WRITING | |
| Writer Conversations, co-edited with Duncan Wooldridge. London: 1000 Words, 2022. | |
| “I feel them still,” Interview with artist in the monograph Trish Morrissey: Autofictions. Mänttä: | |
| Serlechius Museum, 2022. | |
| “Reading the Signs,” essay in Norman Behrendt, Blueprint 2017-2020 (Stockholm: Kult Books, | |
| 2021). | |
| “Crooked Photography: Anti-realism, Construction and Imagination,” in Alternative Narratives | |
| (Brighton: Photoworks, 2020). | |
| “Plucked” essay in Geir Moseid, Plucked (Oslo: Teknisk, 2020). | |
| “Photography in Flux,” 1000 Words: 10 Years (London: 1000 Words), 2018, pp. 10-15. | |
| Why Art Photography? Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. 2nd ed., 2018. Farsi edition (Tehran: Nashr-e | |
| Pargar, 2020). Korean edition (Mijin Publishers, 2018). Chinese edition (China Nationality Art Photographic Publishing House, 2016). Spanish edition (Salamanca: University of Salamanca Press, 2015). Introduction essay reproduced in Liz Wells, ed. The Photography Reader: History and Theory (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019). | |
| Publishing House, 2016). Korean edition (Mijin Publishers, 2018). | |
| “Photography in Flux,” 1,000 Words: 10 Years (print edition), 2018. | |
| “Notes on Photography and Cultural Translation.” Photographies. 11 (2-3), 2018, pp. 329-338. | |
| “Should I do a Photography MA?” Source 91 (Autumn 2017), pp. 18-23. | |
| “Expanded Photography: Persistence of the Photographic,” PhotoResearcher, No. 26 | |
| (Autumn 2016). | |
| “Showing and Telling: Narrative Photography from Pictures to Parafictions,” in Telling Tales: | |
| Contemporary Narrative Photography (San Antonio, TX: McNay Museum and Seattle, WA: Marquand Books, 2016). | |
| "Expanding Photography circa 1970: Photographic Objects and Conceptual Art" in Mary Statzer, | |
| ed. The Photographic Object (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016). | |
| “Dominic Hawgood: Under the Influence,” 1000 Words 19, Spring 2015 | |
| (www.1000wordsmag.com). | |
| “Work, Rest and Play: British Photography from the 1960s to Today,” catalogue essay in Work, | |
| Rest and Play, published in 4 Chinese editions to accompany an exhibition by The Photographers’ Gallery travelling to Shenzhen, Shanghai, Wuhan and Beijing, 2015-16. | |
| “Eva Stenram: Drape,” Aperture 212 (Fall, 2013), p. 123. | |
| “What is Conceptual Photography?” Source 71 (Summer 2012), pp. 22-3. | |
| “Dial ‘P’ for Panties: Narrative Photography in the 1990s.” Reprinted in Catherine Grant and Lori | |
| Waxman, eds. Girls! Girls! Girls! In Contemporary Art. London: Intellect, 2010, pp. 45-61. [first published in Afterimage, vol. 27, no. 4 (January/February 2000), p. 9-12]. | |
| "La idea fotografica: Reconsideration de la fotografia conceptual." Papel Alpha: Cuadernos de | |
| Fotographia 7 (2009), 91-105 ["The Photographic Idea" first published Afterimage, vol. 26, no. 5 (March/April 1999), pp. 8-10]. | |
| "Idris Khan: The Collapsed Archive." Reprinted in David Evans, ed. Appropriation. London and | |
| Cambridge: Whitechapel and MIT, 2009. [first published in Source 49 (Winter 2007), p. 46-47]. | |
| “The Currency of Practice: Reclaiming Autonomy for the MFA.” (Roundtable discussion) Art | |
| Journal vol. 68, no. 1 (Spring 2009), pp. 41-57. | |
| “Enigmatic Spectacle: Key Strategies in Contemporary Staged Photography.” Susan Fisher | |
| Sterling, ed. Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photography. New York and Washington: Scalo and National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2008. | |
| "What Lies Beneath." Frieze 101 (September 2006) p.177-179. | |
| "Olivier Richon: Still Life and Allegory." Portfolio 39 (June 2004), p. 40-6. | |
| "Critical (in) Practice," Afterimage , vol. 29, no. 4 (January/February, 2002). Entries on Michael | |
| Asher, Victor Burgin, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, and Mike Kelley in Tom and Sara Pendergast, eds., Contemporary Artists, 5th edition. London and New York: St. James Press, 2001. | |
| "An Heirloom: Interpreting a Gilded Age Tortoiseshell Locket." In Jules David Prown and Kenneth | |
|
Haltman, eds., American Artifacts: Essays in Material Culture . East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 2000, p. 213-227. |
| "Document and Fiction in the Work of Carrie Mae Weems." Art and Design , no. 51, p. 70-75. | |
| CONFERENCE CONTRIBUTIONS | |
| “Photography in Flux: The Global Contemporary” Talk given as part of the panel Discursos de la | |
| imagen desde el centro a la periferia, as part of VII Coloquio Virtual Internacional de Investigadores en Diseño, hosted by the University of Palermo, Argentina, July 2022. | |
| “Expanded Photography,” lecture delivered as part of Lianzhou Foto Festival, China, | |
| November 2015. | |
| “Panties and Beyond: Feminism and Photography Since the 1990s" as part of the 6th | |
| International Network Research Workshop, “Fast Forward 2: Women in Photography” at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, February 2019. | |
| “Photography and Cultural Translation,” talk given as part of the conference, “Critical Issues in |
|
| Photography Today,” organized by the journal Photographies, May 2017 | |
| “Translating Photography: A Symposium,” co-chaired with Mao Weidong at Lianzhou Foto | |
| Festival, China, November 2016. | |
| “Fictive Documents and Fictional Lives,” talk given at the conference “Fiction and Photography,” | |
| The Science Museum, London, November 2014. | |
| “The Case for Expanded Photography,” given as part of the panel “Expanded Photography” | |
| chaired by Lucy Soutter at AAH Annual Conference, April 2014. | |
| “Staged Documents and the Troubling Conflation of Genre,” talk given at the symposium “ASAP/4: | |
| Genres of the Present,” hosted by Lucy Soutter and the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present at the RCA, October 2012. | |
| “The New Authenticity? Voice, Ethics and Engagement in Contemporary Art,” keynote speech | |
| delivered at the doctoral conference “Knowing Through Making” at UCA Epsom, October 2008. | |
| "Post-Studio Art School: The Impact of Conceptual Art and Conceptual Artists on Art Education," a | |
| panel chaired by Lucy Soutter at the College Art Association Conference, Boston, February, 2006. | |
| "The College Art Association Conference Made me Cry," A lecture/performance delivered as part | |
| of the panel "Play, Pleasure and Perversion: Insubordinate Refusals of Discipline in the Practices of Art and Theory," chaired by Simeon R. Hunter at the College Art Association Conference, Atlanta, February 2005. | |
| "Douglas Huebler's Visual Provocation: Creative Thinking in the Undifferentiated Field," A lecture | |
| given as part of a conference organised by Mark Godfrey, coinciding with an exhibition of Huebler's work at the Camden Arts Centre, March 2002. | |
| "Community vs. Context in the Reception of Eleanor Antin's Retrospective," delivered as part of | |
| the panel "Re-viewing 1970s and 1980s Feminist Art Practices in the 1990s: Three Major Exhibitions on Judy Chicago, Eleanor Antin and Martha Rosler," at the College Art Association Conference, Chicago, March 2001. | |
| INVITED TALKS, IN CONVERSATIONS AND PANEL DISCUSSIONS | |
| “Family Matters: Photography and the Art of Invention” panel discussion with Jonny Briggs and | |
| Leonard Surajaya as part of Peckham 24 Photography Festival, May 2022. | |
| “In Conversation with Gauri Gill,” as part of the Global Photographies Network online talks series, | |
| March 2021. | |
| “Challenging Photography, Challenging Photographers,” talk given at the Royal Photographic | |
| Society, Bristol, September 2019. | |
| “Beyond Photography,” Panel discussion with Lorenzo Vitturi, Alix Marie and Milo Keller as part of | |
| Photo London, May 2018. | |
| “The Anthropocene: On the Edge of Perception,” talk given Department of Visual and | |
| Photography Today,” organized by the journal Photographies, May 2017. | |
| “Expanded Photography,” lecture delivered as part of Lianzhou Foto Festival, China, | |
| November 2015. | |
| “Beyond Photography: Persistence of the Photographic in Contemporary Art,” a talk given as part | |
| of the “Speaking of Photography” series at Concordia University, Montreal, January 2014. | |
| “In Conversation with Susan Hiller,” at the RCA Moving Image Studio, October 2009. | |
| “In Conversation with Andres Serrano,” at Tate Modern, November 2008. | |
| “In Conversation with Catherine Yass,” at the German Gymnasium, London, September 2008. | |
| "Recent Trends in British Art Photography," A seminar presentation at the Malmö Konsthall as | |
| part of the Fotografi i Focus festival, Malmö Sweden, March 2007 | |
| "The Los Angeles Thing," slide lecture/performance on Los Angeles Art and its contemporary | |
| cultural context, presented in collaboration with Scott Lyall, at U.K. arts institutions including The Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow; and Goldsmiths College, London. | |
RECENT LECTURE TOPICS INCLUDE
Developing Markets and Outlets for your Photographic Work
Performance and Performativity in Contemporary Photography
Photography Now: Global Trends, Selfie Culture and Digital Developments
The Anthropocene on the Edge of Perception
Narrative Photography from Pictures to Parafictions
Expanding Photography: Persistence of the Photographic since 1970
The Materiality of the Digital Image
Authenticity in Photography After the Internet
What Is/Was Contemporary Art: Definitions and Debates
The New Materiality: Thing Theory, Vibrant Matter and Neomaterialism
Legacies of Conceptual and Post-conceptual Art
Women of Vision: Female Photographers from Pictorialism to Instagram
RECENT RESEARCH METHODS SEMINARS INCLUDE
Writing an Abstract
Writing a Literature Review
Approaches to PhD writing 1: Writing Your Way into Your Topic and Voice
Approaches to PhD writing 2: Effective Editing
Deepening Your Research
The Life Cycle of an Academic Book
| RESEARCH SUPERVISION | |
| Megan Carnite, Discursive Similarities and Corporeal Evidence: The relationship between |
|
| cameraless photographs and the body (current) | |
| Haley Morris-Cafiero, PhD by Published Work (current) |
|
| Georgina Mind, Bound Together by a New Sympathy: Collaboration and the Practice of Women’s |
|
| Studio Photography (1890-1918), Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the National Portrait Gallery. (Westminster PhD 2021) | |
| Emma Brasó, Parafictional Artists from the Critique of Authorship to the Curatorial Turn (DOS, |
|
| RCA PhD, 2018) | |
| Luci Eldridge, Mars, Invisible Vision and the Virtual Landscape: immersive encounters with |
|
| contemporary rover images (RCA PhD, 2017) | |
| Kim Dhillon, More Than Words: Text Art Since Conceptualism (RCA PhD, 2017) |
|
| JJ Charlesworth, Art Criticism: The Mediation of Art in Britain 1968-76 (RCA PhD, 2016) |
|
| Juliet Thorp, Darwin’s Dream: The Significance of Painting and its Collection at the RCA 1948- | |
| 1998 (RCA MPhil, 2012). | |
PEER REVIEW
Peer reviewer for publishers including Bloomsbury, Palgrave Macmillan and Routledge, and for the journal Photographies.
EXAMINING
External examiner, BA Photography, University of Portsmouth, 2020-present
External on revalidation panel, MA Photography, University of Falmouth, 2020.
External examiner (theory), MA Photography, University of Westminster 2015-16.
External on revalidation panel, BA (hons) Culture, Criticism, Curation, Central St. Martins, UAL, 2016.
External examiner (theory), BA (hons) Photography at UCA, Farnham, 2007-9.
External examiner for PhD: Arturo Soto Gutierrez, Affective Vision: Urban Landscape Photographs and their Parataxis, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, 2020; Naomi Salaman, Looking Back at the Life Room, UCL, 2008.
Internal Examiner for PhD: Federica Chiocchetti, Phototexts: Critical Intersections in History, the University of Westminster, 2020.
LINKS
Lucy is a founding member of the Global Photographies Network, an international partnership of artists, academics, photographers, curators, writers and publishers sharing knowledge and tools to de-center and de-colonise photographic practice: https://globalphotographies.com
“Writer Conversations,” interviews with prominent photography writers, co-edited with Duncan Wooldridge and originally released as features on the 1000 Words website 2020-2021: https://www.1000wordsmag.com/features
“Interdependence,” a curatorial collaboration with artist Gauri Gill for Der Greif, October 2021
https://dergreif-online.de/guest-room/lucy-soutter/
Lucy Soutter interviewed by Zak Dimitrov for American Suburb X, August 2020
https://americansuburbx.com/2020/08/zak-dimitrov-interview-with-lucy-soutter.html
Lucy Soutter interviewed by Lewis K Bush in issue 26 of 1,000 Words, October 2017
http://www.1000wordsmag.com
A podcast of Lucy Soutter in conversation with Brainard Carey of the Museum of Invisible Art
Yale Radio, WYBCX, 15 December, 2015
http://museumofnonvisibleart.com/interviews/lucy-soutter/
“What is Conceptual Photography?”
Three online films produced by Source Photographic Review
www.source.ie/feature/what_is_conceptual.html
“Why Art Photography?”
Book launch talk at The Photographers Gallery, 22 February 2013
https://thephotographersgalleryblog.org.uk/2013/04/02/lucy-soutter-why-art-photography/
JUDGING PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITIONS AND AWARDS
Juror, British Photography Awards 2020
Member Award Commitee, RPS Awards Committee member 2018-19
Selector, Photofusion Salon, 2019
Nominator, Paul Huff Award, FOAM Talent, 2019
Juror, Lianzhou Foto Festival 2015, 2016
MASTER OF CEREMONIES
Royal Photographic Society Awards, 2018 and 2019