This is a 3 day workshop, running Fri 6 - Sun 8 November. Each day will be 10am-5pm. A full itinerary will be sent to all attendees in advance.

Olivia Arthur’s career is one defined by both continuity and reinvention. Her early projects, including Jeddah Diary and The Middle Distance, often examined the lives of women as they navigated questions of personal freedom and societal expectations. More recently, her work has shifted closer to home, exploring questions of intimacy and the body, catalysed by her own experiences of motherhood. Her photographic language has aso evolved, moving beyond traditional documentary practice to embrace large-format photography, collage and text. These new approaches have slowed Arthur’s approach, in tactile and deliberate ways. Throughout this evolution, a series of common threads can be found, asking what it means to truly see one another in ways that are both vulnerable and intimate, always paying attention to the body. 

We invite you to join us for a three-day workshop led by Olivia, designed to help you move your practice forwards. Over the three days, you will look at your recent projects and wider body of work to identify what motivates you, the subjects and ideas that matter to you, and the visual approaches you use to explore them. Together, you will consider what feels most authentic to your practice, where you want to take your work next, and how you can make meaningful, practical decisions about its development. Alongside this reflection, you will undertake a short micro-project during the workshop, giving you the opportunity to test ideas, experiment with your approach and put your thinking into practice.

Drawing on her experience of working across diverse subjects, photographic languages and perspectives, Olivia is well placed to support photographers at any stage. Whether you are feeling stuck, looking for a new direction or seeking to deepen an established practice, this workshop will help you move forward with greater clarity, confidence and purpose.

Biography

Olivia Arthur was born in London in 1980. She studied mathematics at Oxford University and photojournalism at the London College of Printing. She began working as a photographer in 2003 after moving to Delhi, and was based in India for two and a half years. In 2006, she left for Italy to take up a one-year residency with Fabrica, during which she began working on a series about women and cultural divides. Her first book, Jeddah Diary (2012), follows the lives of young women in Saudi Arabia. Her second book, Stranger (2015), is a journey into Dubai seen through the eyes of the survivor of a shipwreck.

The ways people see themselves and connect to each other are themes Arthur explored in her project about sexuality in India, titled In Private/Mumbai, and through her commissions for Hull, City of Culture, and the Rome Collection about young people and intimacy during Covid. Arthur’s practice has also moved into an examination of the human relationship to the body, people’s physicality and its intersection with technology, working predominantly with large-format portraiture. Arthur gave a TED talk on this subject in 2020. She enjoys exploring different mediums and has made two short films and a children’s book using collage.

Arthur’s work has been exhibited internationally and is included in institutional collections in the UK, USA, Germany, and Switzerland. She is co-founder of Fishbar, a publisher and space for photography in London. She became a member of Magnum Photos in 2013 and in 2020 was elected as its president.

FAQ’s

1. Who is it for? This workshop is for anyone who is committed to making photographic work. It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out or have already developed multiple bodies of work. The workshop is designed to meet you wherever you are currently at. \ 2. What do I need to bring? You will be expected to show your work, so please bring your projects on a laptop or hard-drive, or in book or book-dummy form. Please also bring whatever camera you like to use to make pictures. \ 3. How many people will there be? The maximum number of participants is 12. We will run the course as long as we have a minimum of 8 participants. \ 4. Where will the workshop take place? The workshop will take place in Bristol. We have several teaching spaces across the city, aligned with the festival. The final location will be confirmed shortly. However, it will be in central Bristol, no more than 20 minutes by foot from Bristol Temple Meads. \ 5. I’m a current student, do I get a discount? Yes, current UWE students get a 40% discount. All other current students receive a 30% discount. \ 6. I want to take part but don’t live in Bristol. There are many cheap hotels in Bristol where you can stay for the duration of the workshop. All participants will be sent a list of suggestions.