Creative Talk: Siân Davey

This event is part of our Creative Talks series that feature practitioners/makers/artists who work in a variety of disciplines, media and forms across the creative arts, including: the visual arts, design, performance, craft-work, creative writing and more. The series aims to address questions about the nature of ‘creativity’ and ‘practice as research’, featuring speakers who will share their work, the processes they use, their influences, and their own experiences of professional practice. Sessions will reflect the disciplinary range of speakers and may feature presentations, performances, workshops etc. The aim is to create an open, multi-disciplinary space in which to introduce audiences (students and the public alike) to a wide range of creative practices that inspire new ideas about how to make new work.

For this Creative Talk we welcome Siân Davey. A photographer with a background in Fine Art and Social Policy, for the past 15 years she has worked as a humanist psychotherapist. Her photography work is an investigation of the psychological landscapes of both herself and those around her, with her family and community being central to her practice.

After visiting the Louise Bourgeoise retrospective at the Tate London (2007), Davey was immediately inspired to translate her history creatively. In 2011 she found her medium, the camera and committed to the process of photography.

In 2012 she entered an MA programme and followed it though with an MFA in photography. Davey has since produced work about each of her children and which serve as a portal to her unconscious world.

Siân has recently completed her MA and MFA in photography. She has been the recipient for numerous awards including the winner of the Arnold Newman Award for New Directions in Portraiture, Prix Virginia Woman’s Photography Award and 3 consecutive years the National Gallery Taylor Wessing Portrait Award. Her book ‘Looking for Alice’ was shortlisted for Paris Photo – Aperture Best Book Award Shortlist 2016 and shortlisted for the Kraszna – Krausz Foundation Book Award. Her second book ‘Martha’ was published with Trolley Books 2018. In 2024 Davey published her 3rd book The Garden with Trolley Books.

Davey’s work is held by major collections including The Science Museum, London; The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The French National Collection, The National Portrait Gallery, and The Martin Parr Foundation; Bristol.

Chair: Angus Fraser, Programme Leader BA (Hons) Photography

Image credit: Siân Davey

Host or Publisher The Arts Institute