Gary Bratchford

Biography

Dr Gary Bratchford is an Associate Professor of Photography at Birmingham, City University. Previously MA Programme Leader for Photography, Deputy Director of the Creative Practice Research Academy (CPRA) and Chair of the Visual Culture Research Group at the University of Central Lancashire.

Gary co-edits Visual Studies Journal, Visual Culture in Britian and co-edits the Palgrave Book Series, Social Visualities.

Formally President of the International Sociological Association’s Visual Research Group, Gary is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). Gary is also a Trustee of the Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, UK.

In 2023 he was the recipient of the Prosser Award.

Research Interests:

Gary’s main areas of research includes visual sociology, visual culture, and collaborative visual methods which he uses to explore the intersections between vision, visibility and the ways in which image-makers engage with these themes in various contexts and geographies.

Gary works and researches on projects and themes of:

• Vision & verticality / vertical perspectives and volume through various contexts and art practices.
• Social practice and visual methods, specifically around notions of co-creation and health/community action.
• Visualizing/visualizations of Gentrification.

In addition to research and writing on themes of verticality, new aerial visions and scopic regimes of power and representation, Gary is broadly interested in ways in which artists and image-makers engage with themes of visibility and power in various contexts and geographies.

As as practice-based researcher/writer, Gary uses mixed-methods approaches, including collaborative, longitudinal socially engaged processes and curatorial practices, to develop a critical understanding of how practice-based research and visual cultures can engender more inclusive and participatory ways to think though a number of issues including health, community cohesion and politics.

His most recent project, a 6 year, site-specific projected supported by the Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool and the Paul Hamlyn Fund, yielded multiple outputs including the book and exhibition, As & When: Documentating Socially Engaged Practice (2019), Know thy Neighbour (2019) and Just Between Friends (2021).