Karen  Ingham

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Artist Statement

My practice is concerned predominantly with two main areas: the body and the discourse between art and the biosciences, and the relationship between photography, memory and death. My methodology is interdisciplinary incorporating theory and practice, and projects are developed and realised via several different approaches, for example an exhibition in an established art gallery, a site-specific installation, a textual publication or visual monograph.

For the past five years my practice has focused on the interface between science, photography, and the arts, and specifically the discourse between medicine and the body. I have received major support from The Wellcome Trust, The Arts & Humanities Research Council, The Arts Council of Wales and The Calouste Gulbekian Foundation, to explore, research, develop, exhibit, tour and publish a series of artists interventions. These interventions are staged in domains that are normally concealed and exclusive spaces such as the Dissecting Room, the Anatomical Museum, the Hospital Operating Theatre, and the Medical Research Laboratory.

Using a range of photographic, video, and medical and diagnostic imaging technologies, my practice explores the threshold between life and death. I am interested in notions of the surreal and the uncanny, and in creating unsettling interventions in normally mundane and commonplace situations. My work is concerned with the universal themes of death, disease, and fear of the unknown and while my work is grounded in a philosophical and theoretical discourse, accessibility and public engagement are crucial to the communication of my practice, as my most recent AHRC Sciart collaboration, Ars Memoraiae (2005/6), with Cardiff Medical School demonstrates, incorporating scientific research into brain function and cognitive disease with a photographic exploration of plant-based pharmaceuticals and the notion of 'photographic memory'.

I am also a writer on photographic theory and have several publications and essays in circulation including Anatomy Lessons (2004) from Dewi Lewis Publishing and the essay 'Vanitas' in the IRIS publication Stilled: Women's Still Life Photography 2005.

Artist Statement      Resume      Image Thumbnails      Printable Version