Siân Davey

Siân Davey (born 1964) is a British photographer. Her work focuses on her family, community and self, and is informed by her background in psychology.^[1]

Davey has published two books, Looking for Alice (2015) and Martha (2018). In 2017 she had a solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London^[2] and was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Hood Medal for Looking for Alice.^[3]

Life and work

Davey was born in Brighton in 1964. She studied painting at Bath Academy of Fine Art (1985) and social policy at the University of Brighton (1990).^[4] She was a psychotherapist for 15 years before taking up photography in 2014, which she studied at Plymouth University (MA 2014 and MFA 2016).^[1][4][5]

Her photographic practice focuses on her family, community and self, and is informed by her background in psychology.^[1][5] Her series Looking for Alice is a portrait of her daughter Alice who has Down syndrome.^[6] One of the photographs from this series was selected for the 2014 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition.^[5][7] The series was published by Trolley Books in 2015. In 2016, Looking for Alice was shortlisted for Photobook of the Year in the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards.^[8]

Davey's teenage daughter Martha assisted with the creation of Looking for Alice. This led to Davey's next series Martha that focuses on Martha and her teenage friends.^[1][9][10] Two photographs from this series were selected for the 2016 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition.^[11]

In 2017, Davey exhibited her series Together as a pop-up exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London. The work was made as a commission for the McCain Foods We Are Family series "which celebrates British families in all their shapes and sizes".^[2][12] In creating the work, she travelled across Britain and photographed 31 families in 21 days.^[13][14]

Publications

• Looking for Alice. London: Trolley, 2015. ISBN 978-1-907112-52-2. With a text by David Chandler.
• Martha. London: Trolley, 2018. With a foreword by Kate Bush.

Awards

• 2017: Hood Medal, Royal Photographic Society, Bath, for Looking for Alice^[3]
• 2019: W. Eugene Smith Fellowship from the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund^[15]

Solo exhibitions

• We Are Family (Davey's Together series), Print Shop Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2017^[2][12]