Holly Birtles

Holly Birtles is a UK (London) based photographic artist. Her practice incorporates performance, prop production, and digital/analogue techniques, often in collaboration with writers, visual artists, and musicians. Her work connects performance to place, exploring personal narratives associated with specific eco- systems and/or geo trauma. Props and performances respond to natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions; sitters personify specific materials or structures related to the selected sites. Using sound- based performances and tactile props, her works document experiential loss through the photographic image. Recent projects integrate performance and AI into darkroom processes, reflecting on slow violence, ecological crises, myth and sentimentality linked to rivers. Birtles exhibits internationally, often collaborating with artists and writers and is course leader of BA (Hons) Photography at Brighton University.

Holly Birtles has worked as a lecturer across a range of institutions, contributing to courses within Further and Higher Education. Birtles has acted as an external examiner for BA (Hons) Photography and BA (Hons) Visual Communication programmes, participated in HE course revalidation panels, and provided advice on the development of new FE courses.Her exploratory practice contributes research into practice-based and theoretical subjects, including photography and materiality, photography and phenomenology, process-based research, reconstructed photographic realities and manipulation, contemporary fashion photography and fashion moving image, the conceptual image, and performance and photography. This research has informed module development, practice and dissertation supervision, placement organisation, and the delivery of theory and practice focused lectures, seminars and workshops.

Recent Papers:

• 2026 Fighting Fish, AI into Dark Room, Chennai Rivers, Darkness and Photography, School of Digital Arts, Manchester
• 2026 Fighting Fish, AI into Dark Room, Trusting Voices and Artifical Intelligence, Chester University

Selected Exhibitions

Selected SOLO

• 2022 CCA Dorset Place, Brighton, Volcano Mother, Performance and sound by Johanna Bramli
• 2021 UP TO YOUR NECK IN MUD, XXijra Hii, Estuary Festival (online), Deptford, London
• 2020 UP TO YOUR NECK IN MUD, XXijra Hii, Deptford, London 
• 2018 LAZY BOY Spannocchi Jazz Event and Exhibition, Blank 100, De Beauvoir Town, London
• 2018 Luna Elaine 'LAZY BOY’, Bermondsey,  London 
• 2017 Sharks in the Lake, Depford Cinema, London
• 2016 I keep my Expression in my nose, Doomed Gallery, Dalston, London
• 2014 Dr Feel Bad, Doomed Gallery, Dalston, London

Selected GROUP

• 2026 Seismic Mother, Old Waiting Room, Peckham
• 2025 Re Imagined Ecologies, Photography Research Group, Dorset Place Gallery
• 2025 Museo Diocesano Carlo Maria Martini, Milano, Italy, Sony, World Photography Awards2025 Somerset House, Sony, World Photography Awards
  2025 Dorset Place Gallery, Brighton, British Antarctic Survey Archive Collaboration 
• 2025 Forum Gallery, Chennai, India, Alt Analog
• 2024 Willmott Gallery, Brighton, What Lies Beneath, Holly Birtles/Zoe Childerley
• 2024 Phoenix Arts Space, Brighton, Stranger Than Fiction 
• 2024 APT Gallery, Bog Bodies, Holly Birtles/Charly Blackburn 
• 2023  Hypha Studios, Seismic Mother, Stratford, London
• 2023 Recreational Grounds, Elephant and Castle, London (including performance collaboration with Hannah Grasskamp)
• 2023 Hercules Road, Blake’s Old Haunt, London 
• 2022 Safe House Peckham, Holly Birtles/Molly Grad/David Micheaud, Peckham, London
• 2022 Magic Sponge, Hercules Road, London 
• 2022 Telling Pictures, Photography Research Group, Edward Street Galleries, University of Brighton
• 2022 Baaad Press, Book event,  Birmingham School of Art 
• 2022 Bergen Art Book Fair, Bergen, Norway, book Launch; On Growth and Form Edition 3
• 2022  Mother Lode, Holly Birtles/Natalia Janula, XXijra Hii Gallery, Deptford, London
• 2022 Photographic Exploration Project, Kommunale Galerie, Berlin
• 2021  Way Out East, University of East London, London 
• 2021 When Was the Last Time You Saw the Sea? Youkobo Art Space, The Garden, Ai mi Tagai Showspace, Tokyo, Japan 
• 2021 Bristol Artist’s Book Event (BABE), Arnolfini Bristol
• 2020/2021 Bergen Art Book Fair, Bergen, Norway
• 2020 Photo Book Fair, Impressions Gallery, Bradford 
• 2020 Paradox Amusements (Holly Birtles and Lucinda Metcalfe, Lewisham Art House (12 - 15th March 2020)
• 2020 Conscious Isolation, Online  @consciousisolation
• 2019 Open Salon 35, CGP Gallery, London
• 2019 Bermondsey Artist Group show CGP Gallery, London 
• 2019 Sheffield Artists Book Fair Artist's Book Centre, Sheffield
• 2019 PROD 3, Deptford Does Art, London
• 2019 Jazz and Visuals Spannocchi Trio/Holly Birtles, Agile Rabbit, Brixton, London
• 2019 Research work in progress, University Centre Farnborough, Hampshire
• 2019 Baltic Self Publishing Artists market, Baltic Gallery, Newcastle 
• 2018 Jazz and Visuals Spannocchi Trio/Holly Birtles, Deptford Cinema 
• 2018 OPEN18 SOLO HUB ONCA Gallery, Brighton Fringe (Shortlisted)
• 2018 GET OUT MY GALLERY,  Holly Birtles/Nicky Carvell, Doomed Gallery, London 
• 2018 Open Salon 34, CGP Gallery, London
• 2018 Lazy Boy performance, Chalton Gallery, London
• 2018 BBB Books, Baltic Self Publishing Artists market, Baltic Gallery, Newcastle
• 2018 Metro Auditorio, Chalton Gallery, Mexico City
• 2017 Creekside Open, Selected by Alison Wilding, APT Gallery, Deptford, London
• 2017 Book Art Far, BBB Book Collective, Baltic Gallery, Newcastle
• 2017 London Brain Project with Great Ormand Street, collaboration project, Menier Gallery, London 
• 2017 Research work in progress, University Centre Farnborough, Hampshire 
• 2017 Plymouth Art Book Fair, Counter, Davy Building Plymouth University, Plymouth
• 2016 Baltic Self Publishing Artists market, Baltic Gallery, Newcastle
• 2016 London Brain Project, Link gallery at Institute of child Health, London 
• 2016 PROD 2, Unit 3 Projects, Bow, London 
• 2016 Art Shorts, The Valletta Film Festival, Malta 
• 2016 Baltic Self Publishing Artists market, Baltic Gallery, Newcastle
• 2016 Uncover Festival, Bower Ashton Library, Bristol
• 2016 Uncover Festival Liverpool library, Liverpool
• 2016 Uncover Festival, Falmouth, USA
• 2016 Uncover Festival, Middleton Library, Manchester 
• 2015 Group Show, Chalton Gallery, London
• 2016 PROD, Unit 3 Projects, London
• 2015 BBB Books Collective, Bergen Art Book Fair, Bergen, Norway
• 2015 600 Miles West of Mexico, The Store, London
• 2015 Material Light, Cultural Centre Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
• 2015 Baltic Self Publishing Artists market, Baltic Gallery, Newcastle
• 2013 Material Light, Westminster University Gallery, Photography Department, London 
• 2013 Vibe Gallery, Bermondsey, London
• 2013 Bind your heart in my hair (or) We'll have no trouble/no disturbance here, Husk Gallery,Lime House London
• 2013 The Laying on of Hands, 5th Base Gallery, Brick Lane, London
• 2012 Scratch the Surface, East Gallery, London
• 2011 Artist in Residence Show, The Slade School of Art, London
• 2011 MA/MFA Show, The Slade School of Art, London 
• 2011 10 Gales Prize, 10 Gales Gallery, Bethnal Green, London
• 2011  Ordinary Time, St Barnabas Church, Dalston, London
• 2010 The Slade Interim Show, Woburn Research Centre, London 
• 2010 Transfer, UCL Art Collection, The Strang Print Room, London 
• 2010 Artist Books, Galerie Ute Parduh, KaiserswertherMarkt 6a 404 Düsseldorf, Germany 
• 2010 Life on the Island, Cheltenham Art Gallery, The Brewery, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire 
• 2009 A Thing about Machines, Arts Festival, Coventry 
• 2008 The University of Westminster Photography Degree Show, The Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London,
• 2008 The University of Westminster Photography Degree Show P3 Gallery, Marylebone Road, London
• 2008 Pin-Yin, Gallery West, Harrow, Middlesex 
• 2008 Terra Incognita The Foundry, London 
• 2007 Same Light: Different View, Nanjing Normal University Gallery, Nanjing, China
• 2007 When the Sky Turns Purple, The Nolias Gallery, London
• 2004 I Am, The Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London

I am interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas: performance and photographic practices and theories, process-led photographic research, photography and phenomenology, photography and place, photography environment and catastrophe, dark room and hybrid practices (analogue, digital, AI). 

Current PhD supervision includes:

• 'Feminism in Cameraless Photography Practice Today: From the Photogram to AI-generated imagery'
• 'Place, photographer & print, an entanglement'