Two postgraduate photography students from the University of Plymouth have been named among the best in the UK by eminent curators from national arts institutions.
Robert Darch and Sian Davey, both recent graduates from the MFA Photographic Arts programme, have been selected to feature on Graduate Photography Online, the platform created by Source magazine to showcase emerging talent from photography courses across the UK and Ireland.
They are among 13 photographers chosen by prominent curators Kate Bush (Media Space), Cliff Lauson (Hayward Gallery) and Shoair Mavlian (Tate Modern), and their work will be published in a supplement with Issue 87 of Source Magazine’s Print and Digital Editions.
Sian Davey has previously won a variety of global accolades for Looking for Alice, a project centred on her young daughter, who was born with Down’s Syndrome. She has achieved success in the New York Photo Awards and the Lens Culture Emerging Talents Award, also being named Best Emerging Photographer at the Pingyao International Photography Festival. And a book recording the project was named among the top 10 photography publications in the Observer Books of the Year 2015.
Robert Darch has a particular interest in the experience of place, and constructs narratives that help articulate an ambiguous personal perception of those spaces. His work has been exhibited and published internationally, while he has also set up and run Macula, a collective for young photographers in the South West, and co-programmes and curates Dodo Photo, a small gallery space and studio in Exeter.
David Chandler, Professor of Photography at the University of Plymouth, said:
“Both Sian and Robert have excelled during their time at Plymouth, producing photographic work that is both highly distinctive in its relationship to the South West and completely international in its ambition and standard. Their success is indicative of an exciting momentum in the teaching of photography at the University, which is set to gather pace in the future.”
Kate Bush, Curator of the Media Space, said:
“It is great to get the chance to review new work by emerging photographers in this way. It’s tough as a photographer to distil your project and your ideas into eight or so pictures but it is an essential discipline.”
Source Graduate Photography Online is the only existing online collection of its kind in the UK and Ireland, and since 2007, thousands of students have submitted to the platform with many others in the photographic industry visiting the website to discover new photographic talent. It exists primarily to ensure that students are able to make their new work visible to people with a focused interest in contemporary photography including curators, picture researchers and other industry professionals.
