Who's who

BA(Hons) Fine Art/Sculpture, Chelsea School of Art, MA Fine Art, Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic

Arts, Communities and Environment Research Centre

Creative Communities Research Group

Research interests

My research interest is in creating visual fictions, with particular emphasis on the domestic, the absurd, performance, place and object. My work entails constructing scenarios for the camera, existing only for as long as the shutter remains open; more recently I have been incorporating sound and moving image.

The other strand of my research is as director of TRACE, a curation and publishing project which I established in 1999, investigating the interactions that occur between image and literature. A key concern is the dissemination of the photograph and moving image, through exhibition and publishing, both analogue and digital.

Recent output

• Case Study: TRACE', in Exhibiting Photography, edited by Shirley Read, Focal Point Press, UK & USA (2008).
• ‘Out of Order', Images featured from the series ‘Kaput!', in Portfolio # 47, with essay by Pavel Büchler ISSN 1354 - 4446 (2008)
• Images featured in Dr Clocks Handbuch des Absurden, edited by Mel Gooding & Julian Rothenstein, Manhattan, Germany ISBN 978-3-442-54653-4 (2008)
• ‘Imagine Finding Me', Chino Otsuka, TRACE Editions (2006)
• ‘Ordinary Magic', 2 images featured in Portfolio # 50, celebrating 21 years of the publication ISSN 1354 - 4446 (2009)

Selected earlier outputs

• Everyday Dada, Dewi Lewis Publishing (UK/Europe: September 2006, USA/Canada: April 2007), - 96 Pages - 55 colour photographs, ISBN-1-904587-31-3
• 'Glowing, 4 page feature' with an essay by Camilla Jackson, Senior Curator, Photographers' Gallery, London, for Portfolio #40 (December 2004), ISSN 1354 - 4446
• The Image Wrought: Historical Photographic Approaches in the Digital Age, image featured in exhibition, Harry Ransom Center Galleries, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA 31 January - 6 August 2006
• Image included in Seeing Things: Photographing Objects, 1845-2001; photograph exhibited in exhibition of 100 photographs, Canon Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum, curated by Mark Haworth-Booth, Senior Curator in Photography at the museum, 21 February - 18 August 2002. It was in six sections, ranging from early photographic works to key contemporary images, own image was the key image for the section titled ‘Making Things' and also was the poster image for the exhibition. 

Other outputs

• Editor ‘Dark City Light City' by Carol Robertson and Michèle Roberts, TRACE Editions, UK, ISBN 978-0-9550945-3-8 (2007)
• Editor ‘Villa Mona: a proper kind of house' by Marjolaine Ryley with essay by Camilla Brown, TRACE Editions, UK, ISBN 0-9550945-2-6 (2006)
• Co - organised with Kim Dhillon, Transylvania-on-Sea, residency on a beach on Portland, Dorset for Romanian artist Adrian Ghenie, (2006)
• Editor ‘Wild Track' by Mark Haworth -Booth, TRACE Editions, ISBN 09550945-0-X UK (2005)
• ‘Kaput!', ACE/IPRN Commission, Moravska Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic. (2005)
• from an elsewhere unknown, Single authored book, with essays by Mark Haworth-Booth and Mel Gooding. Ffotogallery, Cardiff /Hirsch Contemporary Art, London
  ISBN 9 - 781872 - 771519 (2004)

Current research / forthcoming outputs

• Ordinary Magic; researching and collecting superstitions, old wives tales, traditional local household hints and husbandry around Celtic communities. Plan to consolidate my initial researches which were commenced in County Cork in Ireland in summer 2008 on a residency at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh.
• 2010 Re-launch TRACE in Cornwall
• Photographs in The Contemporary Self Portrait, edited by Susan Bright, Thames and Hudson. (Forthcoming 2010)
• July 2010 - 3 Person Exhibition, Gallerie Uno, Stuttgart, Germany

Membership of learned societies, subject associations

• LAND2
• APHE
• Histories of Photography

Editorial Boards and equivalent

• 2009 Judge,  National Portrait Gallery, Taylor Wessing Photography Prize. 
• 2008 Consultant & Mentor to Chino Otsuka for her Pearson Creative Research Fellowship, British Library, London
• 2006 Selector, Jerwood Photography Awards

I am particularly interested in supervising research in all aspects of fine art /documentary photography and its dissemination.

Website and links

• www.sianbonnell.net
• www.traceisnotaplace.com
• photoworksuk.blogspot.com