Tessa Bunney

Since graduating from West Surrey College of Art and Design in 1988, I have worked as a documentary photographer undertaking personal projects and editorial photography as well as a wide range of commissions and residencies nationally and internationally. My work has been published widely including the Guardian Weekend, The Financial Times Magazine, foto8, Geographical, National Geographic, The Sunday Times Magazine, Private Photo Review, Daylight, HotShoe, BJP and Observer Food. As a photographer, I have a particular interest in different landscapes and the way they are shaped by human activity. Working closely with communities and individuals, my work explores people’s relationship to the environment. My recent project Home Work was published by Dewi Lewis in 2010 and was exhibited and published nationally and internationally including the Land exhibition as part of the Noorderlicht Festival, 2010. Home Work was the result of two six month periods living in Vietnam, exploring domestic labour in the suburbs and villages in and around Hanoi. Previous projects include Hand to Mouth which explores the lives of villagers and nomadic shepherds in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains which was exhibited and published by Impressions Gallery, Bradford in 2007. I have also spent many years photographing hill farmers and small food producers in the North York Moors around where I live. Eat Better, Eat British was award an honourable mention in the Oskar Barnack Award in 2000 and was shown at 31st Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles. My work consists of elements of landscape, portraiture and documentary photography. More recently I have also included still lives, photographing items belonging to the people I am working with, setting up a basic mobile studio in their homes or using a scanner and laptop computer. I am passionate about portraying the ‘unseen’ work that women do in the home and by photographing these everyday items in isolation I aim to transform them into something precious and raise the visibility of women’s work. In these, my most recent projects, I am documenting the changes and decline of traditional rural industries, often connected with Westernisation (including EU legislation) and the impact this has had on communities and the environment. This along with the role of female workers within the often harsh industries has give my work a strong political undercurrent. My work draws attention to observing details which we usually let slip by unnoticed and aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the changing nature of rural life. In 2010, I was artist in residence at Jyväskylä printmaking centre in Central Finland exploring the landscape of the frozen lake which I published as an artists book in 2012, and undertook a commission for Hereford Photography Festival about the Hereford cow which was exhibited at the Festival that year. The series Järvenjää/Lakeice will be exhibited at Photofusion, London in Autumn 2013. I am currently based in Vientiane, Lao PDR working on my ongoing project Field, Forest and Family for which I have received a Grants for the Arts Award from Arts Council England and undertaking freelance photography for NGOs. I am represented by Zoe Bingham Fine Art in London and Klompching Gallery in New York.