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Helen Warburton - The Open College of the Arts

To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.

Helen Warburton

Photography and visual culture are at the heart of my professional practice.

I work primarily as a curator of exhibitions for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), having previously developed gallery programmes with a specialism in photography and visual art. This involved working with artists such as Anna Fox, Zhao Renhui, Ragnar Kjartansson, Daniel Meadows, and Jo Longhurst, and galleries such as Robert Morat Galerie, Berlin. For BAFTA, project partners have included The Photographers’ Gallery, Royal Albert Hall, Camerapress and Leica, and collections such as the BBC, BFI National Archive, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

I hold an MA with distinction in the History of Photography from Birkbeck, University of London, with research interests in exhibitions and publishing cultures, and the histories of photography in relation to those of the screen arts, documentary practices, and sculpture. My dissertation, Radical Cameos: Sculptural Thinking, Bodiless Heads, and the Early Photographic Portrait was awarded the Henry Moore Dissertation Prize for excellence in the postgraduate study of sculpture, and is now held in the Henry Moore Institute Library, Leeds.

I started out studying vocationally at Leeds College of Art, with diplomas in Graphic Design, and Photography and Digital Media. This gave me the grounding to become a designer and photographer, and to gain a BA in Documentary Photography at the University of Wales, Newport. Before focussing on a curatorial practice, my photographic work was exhibited at Impressions Gallery, Bradford; Fotosommer Stuttgart, Germany; Vyner Street Gallery, London and Candid Arts Space, London.

As a tutor, I look forward to supporting students to develop their understanding of the processes, aesthetics, and contexts of photography in order to create critically engaging work that they are deeply passionate about.

helen warbuton