Professor of Photography
Anna joined University for the Creative Arts in 2004 as Head of Photography. In 2009 she became Professor of Photography. Before working at UCA Anna had been senior lecturer on the Masters courses at University of the Arts, London and at the Royal College of Art and she has led numerous photography workshops/master classes around the globe. She now teaches across the BA and MFA photography as well as supervising PhD students and directs the research cluster Fast Forward: Women in Photography.
Bio
Anna Fox (b.1961) is one of the most acclaimed British photographers of the last thirty years and is Professor of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts.
Anna graduated with a first class (Hons) BA in Audio Visual Studies from the West Surrey College of Art & Design (now UCA) in 1986.
Working in colour, Fox first gained attention for Work Stations: Office Life in London (1988), a study of office culture in Thatcher’s Britain. She is best known for Zwarte Piet (1993-8), a series of portraits taken over a five-year period that explore Dutch black-face’ folk traditions associated with Christmas. Her collaborative projects Country Girls (1996-2001) and Pictures of Linda (1983-2015) challenge our views about rural life in England while her more intimate works My Mother’s Cupboards and My Father’s Words (1999) and Cockroach Diary (1996-1999) expose the dysfunctional relationships at work in the family home in a raw and often surprising manner.
Anna Fox Photographs 1983-2007, was published by Photoworks in 2007. Fox’s solo shows have been seen at Photographer’s Gallery, London, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art, Krakow amongst others and her work has been included in international group shows including Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool and the Avant Garde at Tate Liverpool, How We Are: Photographing Britain at Tate Britain. And This is Britain; Photographs from the 1970s and 80s at National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
In 2010 she was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for her exhibition Cockroach Diary and Other Stories at Impressions Gallery in Bradford. Fox is currently working on the research project Fast Forward; Women in Photography for which she has been awarded a Leverhulme International Networks Grant, an AHRC Engagement Fellowship and an AHRC Follow on Award as well as being supported in China, the UK and Nigeria by the British Council
Research statement
Anna’s research is primarily practice based and focuses on new approaches to documentary practice, storytelling and publishing photography. She directs the research project Fast Forward: Women in Photography and has numerous monographs of her work. She has curated several exhibitions, made two short films, edited and written a number of books including Street Dreams, Langford’s Basic Photography and Behind the Image.
Her work has been exhibited and published internationally and she has been shortlisted for two major prizes: in 2010 the Deutsche Börse Prize and in 2012 the Pilar Citoler Prize. Her main concerns are with looking at the overlooked, telling tales about the everyday and most of her early work was concentrated on life in the South of England.
More recently she has made work in the Netherlands, India, France and the US. Her key areas of focus have been rural life, women’s lives, the leisure industry, the office, domestic narratives, masquerade and ritual.
Anna has contributed to a number of international conferences including Windows on the World at Going Global (Hong Kong), Henri Cartier Bresson Conference, National Museum of Photography, Bradford, City to Sea, Goldsmiths, Images of the Real: The Power of the Image, Politechnico de Porto, ASA, New Delhi, What do you mean by Photography?, Tate Britain, Fabrication, Nida seminars, Lithuania and Still and Moving Image, Academy of Arts, Oslo.
Recent publications include Country Girls and My Mother’s Cupboards and My Father’s Words both published by Here Press. Three different bodies of work will appear in the 2024 Tate Britain show on British Photography and Work Stations, 1988 has just been exhibited in This is Britain; Photographs from the 1970s and 80s at the National Gallery of Art in Washington who have purchased the work for their collection.
Research supervision
Anna currently supervises 8 PhD students including those affiliated with Fast Forward: Women in Photography.
Professional Membership, Affiliation and Consultancy
- Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society
Anna has been external examiner on Bachelors and Masters across the UK and in India. She has also acted as external examiner on several practice based PhDs in the UK.
- 1993 Arts Council of England
- 1994 Arts Council of England
- 1995 London Arts Board for new work
- 1999 Arts & Humanities Research Board
- 2000 Arts & Humanities Research Board
- 2000 The Hasselblad Foundation Scholarship
- 2000 Arts and Humanities Research Board
- 2005 Arts Council of England
- 2008 Arts Council of England
- 2008 PMI2 (Prime Ministers Initiative) Fund
- 2008 UKIERI (UK India Research Initiative) Award
- 2009 British Council Visual Arts Award
- 2009 PMI2 Fund
- 2010 Shortlisted for the Deutsche Borse Prize
- 2010 PMI2 travel award
- 2010 National Media Museum award for Butlin’s project
- 2011 UKIERI Tripartite Research Award
- 2012 UKIERI Award
- 2012 UKIERI student study missions
- 2015 Arts Council of England
- 2016 Leverhulme Trust International Networks Award
- 2018 British Council West Africa
- 2019 Shortlisted for Madame Figaro Award
- 2019 Honorary Fellowship Royal Photographic Society
- 2021 Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Fellowship AHRC (UKRI)
- 2024 AHRC Follow on Funding