Open Theme nominee

These photographs “stage” the steps of a top-secret CIA document given to covert agents arriving in Frankfurt. The document was released by wikileaks in April 2017 as part of Vault 7 - the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the CIA. The documents provide a telling insight into the culture among the agency, of the normality and ordinariness of the people that work and operate there. They reveal an almost absurd level of banality, a culture so far flung from our Hollywood influenced; idealised perceptions of what it is to be a “spy”. Through my photographs, I aim to present and play on the absurdity that the documents reveal; to challenge our conceptions of contemporary espionage - evoking systems of power through the representation of the banal and blending narratives of fact and fiction. The captions serve as excerpts from the released document, “directing” each individual photograph.

I am a London based photographer and filmmaker. I have recently completed an MA in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication. Having begun my further education in Anthropology, my academic background has given me a deep, base understanding of people and the various ways in which they communicate. It also allows me to merge qualitative research methods, with creative and conceptual practices learned from my Master’s degree. My personal work is heavily researched based, but with conceptual elements often present. I have had much success in my personal work in the last year. I received the Paris Photo Carte Blanche Student Prize. Last year my work was exhibited in France, Italy and Germany. I was also a finalist in the Best Emerging Photographer category as part of the Felix Schoeller Photo Award, a finalist in the Celeste Visible White Photo Prize 2017, shortlisted for the PhotoX, Art Gemini Prize 2017, and I have had a documentary selected and screened at the 2015 American Public Health Association Film Festival, in Chicago.