Previous Recipients: Post Graduate Bursary

Sean McKenzie is an artist based in London working primarily with photography, sculpture, and writing. His research focuses on locating and understanding queer histories by examining historical narratives located within established archives. Through a process of re-creating, and staging, McKenzie creates semi-fictional / factional scenarios as detailed, lifesize environments which he then photographs.

McKenzie’s work is often based on archival material, investigating case studies, criminal records, and newspaper articles as a means of rethinking the past in the present. 

Caroline Douglas is an artist working with photography and moving image. She is currently undertaking a PhD by practice at the Royal College of Art, researching the role of gender and class in early Scottish photography. Caroline is a recipient of the AHRC-techne Scholarship (2017-). In her practice she moves across photography, writing and creative archival research processes to work cross-historically, re-touching the archive, to recover and repair marginalised histories.

'Eroding Franco’ is a documentary photography project that relates the ignored scientific archives during Franco’s regime with the current visual documentation of Spain’s state of desertification. I came up with this story while developing a university project on the coverage that the Spanish press had done on the phenomenon of 'desertification'.

Jimmi Ho is the recipient of the RPS Postgraduate Bursary for 2021/22. He describes his work in his own words:

"By capturing the tranquil moments in daily life, my photography documents the Hong Kong border and Hong Kong immigrants in the UK. It explores the impact related to geopolitics and the social environment between Hong Kong and the UK.
I rely on intuition and devote myself to creating a poetic language of photography, using nature's growth and migration metaphor. I attempt to record the finiteness of Hong Kong people and the calmness that arises in the environment."

Brook Andrew is an artist of Wiradjrui (Australian First Nations) and Celtic ancestry, based in Melbourne Australia. His interdisciplinary practice spans photography, sculpture, installation, painting and printmaking. Since 1996 he has worked with ethnographic museum collections to reimagine the representation of Indigenous peoples and challenge dominant narratives relating to colonialism and inherited histories.

READ MORE ABOUT BROOK'S PROJECT HERE

Inspired by the current political climate, Cocoa Laney returned to her home state of Alabama for a six-week road trip, meeting and staying with diverse young women along the way.

Her project documents the trip and her encounters. It is an exploration of womanhood, shame, and Southern identity in 2019.

READ COCO'S TIP ON PROJECT CREATION HERE

Ioanna Sakellaraki received the 2018 Postgraduate Bursary. After her father passed away three years ago, Ioanna returned to her homeland Greece and followed her mother’s behaviour as a believer, seeking shelter in the wider system of religious traditions and cultural beliefs. As the project advanced and while inspired by the origins of ancient Greek laments, she dwelled within traditional communities of the last female professional mourners inhabiting the Mani peninsula of Greece looking for traces of bereavement and grief and documenting the rituals around death.

Cebe Loomis's photographic project focused on the largest historical landmark site in the United States, Virginia City, Nevada. Dedicated to unpacking the identities of the residential population, as well as the town's built and natural environments, this project aimed to create an understanding of complex American traditions.

Drawing from theories of space and memory, her project incorporated ethnographic text, analogue photography as well as ambient and interview audioscapes, each working to relay the stories and voices that make up Virginia City.

James Morgan's project on the Bajau Laut, a nomadic marine community who ply the waters between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines using traditional breathe hold techniques to dive for fish and other seafood.
A quote from James:
"None of this would have been possible without the support of the RPS bursary, it has opened many doors for me, both photographically and in enabling me to travel to places and experience other cultures, that I wouldn’t otherwise been able to do. I’m very excited to continue the project and to continue my exploration of the space where documentary photography and environmental activism overlap."