Fergus Heron

My research involves picturing ecological formations, infrastructure and urban environments in Britain with photography.

I approach the subjects of my work as places of different natures and histories. A central question I address in connection is how the ordinary world photographed as it appears can become a picture.

The context and influence for my work includes photographs by Benjamin Brecknell Turner (1852-54), Keith Arnatt (1982-84), Paul Graham (1981-), Gabriele Basilico (1982-2012), John Davies (1981-), Karen Knorr (1986-) and Jem Southam (1989-).

I use a view camera, colour negative film and available light to photograph views that are often subjects of longstanding artistic attention in locations usually close to where I live, work and travel through.

Photographic materials are integral to my methods; beyond camerawork, I make positive colour contact prints from negative, proof prints, then specifically enlarged finished prints in the darkroom by hand using the chromogenic print process. Finished prints are displayed in the studio for critical reflection, then mounted and framed for gallery viewing.

My photographs are presented as individual pictures, closely resembling sets and ongoing series in distinct interconnected projects.

Together the projects form a body of work exploring ideas of place and related themes from the urban and the wild to the modern and traditional.

The overall intention of my work is to offer a strangely familiar sense of place and reflection on photography as a medium to concentrate seeing.

I am interested in supervising practice-based research in the following areas: photography and landscape and/or photography and urban environments exploring natures, cultures, histories and places; photography as medium and technology, analogue and digital hybrid technologies of photography; photography as documentary art practice.

Exhibitions featuring my work have included the first major survey of Photography at Tate Britain, How We Are: Photographing Britain; Scene at Pitzhanger Manor Gallery, London; Forest Dreaming at Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World, Exeter; Night: A Time Between at Royal West of England Academy, Bristol; Contemporary Landscape Photography at Worcester Museum and Art Gallery; In Place of Architecture at Bonington Gallery, Nottingham; Present Tense at Phoenix Art Space, Brighton; Displacement at K3 Project Space, Zurich, Switzerland.

My photographs and writing are published in the anthology Emerging Landscapes (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014). I selected The Photographers’ Gallery Photography Culture: Photography and Landscape (London, 2018), edited Visible Economies (Brighton: Photoworks, 2012) and contributed to A Companion to Photography (Oxford: Blackwell, 2020).

I have presented my research as speaker at numerous international university conferences and symposia on art, photography, architecture and landscape.

Selected Exhibitions and Displays

2022

Telling Pictures, University of Brighton Galleries

2019

9 Waterloo Place: Space in Transition, Phoenix Art Space Brighton

Show and Tell: The Image in Research, University of Brighton Galleries

2018

Sussex Open, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne

Northern Light: Proximity and Distance in Landscape Photography, Yorkshire Art Space, Sheffield

2017

Present Tense, Phoenix Art Space Gallery, Brighton

2015

In Place of Architecture, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham

2014

Inhabit, Brighton Photo Fringe, Brighton

Scene, The Studio, Pitzhanger Manor Gallery and House, London

New Photography from Britain and Ireland, Cantieri Culturali Alla Zisa, Palermo, Italy

Views on SE1, part of the International London Festival of Architecture, Anise Gallery, London 

2013

Contemporary Landscape Photography, Worcester Museum and Art Gallery

Land, Travel and Environment, University of Brighton Gallery

Desires Grown Solid, Phoenix Brighton, Brighton Photo Fringe

2012

Capital, George and Jorgen Gallery, London

Infrastructures, Anise Gallery, London

2011

Elusive, Camberwell Space, University of the Arts, London 

2008

Night: A Time Between, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol

2007 

How We Are: Photographing Britain, Tate Britain, London

Publications

2020

Practicing Desires: Authorship in Contemporary Photographic Art in A Companion to Photography by Bull, S. (ed.) Wiley Blackwell ISBN 9781405195843

2018

Built Worlds: Photography, landscape and different natures, essay for The Photographers’ Gallery Photography Culture; https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/photography-culture/built-worlds-photography-landscape-and-different-natures

2016

Photoworks Ideas Series Interview; https://photoworks.org.uk/ideas-series-interview-fergus-heron/  

2014

Desires Grown Solid: Shopping Centre Interiors in Emerging Landscapes by Deriu, Kamvasinou, Shinkle (eds.) Ashgate ISBN 978-1-4094-6705-2

2012

Visible Economies, edited book with essays by Eugenie Shinkle and Martin Newth, works by Sutapa Biswas, Emma Charles, Anna Fox, Immo Klink, Corinne Silva. Photoworks, ISBN 978-1-903796-48-1

2011

Elusive exhibition catalogue, with essay by Martin Newth, Camberwell Press, ISBN 978-0-9536395-6-4

2008

Night: A Time Between exhibition catalogue with essays by Dr Janette Kerr, Dr Steve Poole and Lily Markiewicz, Royal West of England Academy, ISBN 978-1-899525-03-4 2007

2007

How We Are: Photographing Britain exhibition catalogue with essays by Val Williams, Susan Bright, Kevin Jackson and Martin Parr, Tate Publishing, ISBN 978-1-85437-7142

2006

Unravelling Photography exhibition catalogue with essays by Nancy Roth and Liz Wells, Quay Arts, ISBN 100-9552787-2-4

2000

Still/Remains, photographs and essay in Eventful, Photographic Time edited by Yve Lomax and Olivier Richon, Royal College of Art, London. ISBN 1-874175-52-7

Conference presentations and talks

2020

Visiting Speaker, Institute of Photography, Falmouth University, 20 June

With Monochrome Eyes, Panel Discussion with Daniel Alexander, Elena Helfrecht and Silvia Rosi, London South Bank University, 29 February

2019

A Sense of Practice, Association for Photography in Higher Education Interim Event, Arts University Bournemouth, 27 November

Pictures with words, words within pictures, Shaping Knowledge MeCCSA and MPE Practice Network Annual Symposium, University of Kent, 14 June

2018

Northern Light: Proximity and Distance in Northern Landscape Photography, Sheffield Hallam University, 2 July

2017

Visualising the Home, Cumbria Institute of Arts, Carlisle, 13-14 July

2016

Address to the Annual General Meeting of the Royal Photographic Society, 9 July 

On Printing Photography, Panel Discussion Chair, Brighton Photo Fringe, Phoenix Brighton, 21 October

2015

Richard Billingham Artist Talk (Chair) Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne

In Place of Architecture, Nottingham Trent University, 6 November

Landscape, Wilderness and the Wild, Newcastle University, 26th - 28th March

2014

Of the Earth, Plymouth University, 24th - 25th October

Beyond the View, Canterbury Christ Church University, Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury and Turner Contemporary, Margate, 10th - 11th July

Nocturnal, Land/Water and the Visual Arts, Plymouth University, 26th - 27th June

2013

Lessons in Geography (with Martin Newth) MAC Birmingham, 8th - 9th November

Landscape Photography, Panel Discussion organised by Miniclick at Anise Gallery, London, 17th October

Disobedient Objects at Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Organised by Centre for Research on Socio - Cultural Change and V&A, 3rd September

In/Vulnerabilities and Social Change: Precarious Lives and Experimental Knowledge (with Martin Newth), Organised by Centre for Research on Socio - Cultural Change, University of London, 5th September 

Photology, Hastings, East Sussex, 5th August

Visualising the Rural, University of Cumbria, Carlisle, 4th - 5th July

2012

Folio Forum Panle Discussion Chair at The Photographers' Gallery, London, November 22nd

Visible Economies, organised by University of Brighton and Photoworks as part of Brighton Photo Biennial 2012, 29th October

Water:Image, organised by the Land/Water and the Visual Arts Research Group, Plymouth University, 4th-6th July

2011

Ultima Thule, in conversation with Stephen Vaughan, Photofusion, London, 25th May

2010

Documentary Aesthetics organised by University of Brighton and BPB as part of Brighton Photo Biennial 2010, 5th November

Emerging Landscapes a joint venture between the School of Architecture and the Built Environment and the School of Media, Arts and Design, University of Westminster, Marylebone Campus, 25th – 27th June