Ryan L. Moule MA (RCA), FHEA, PhD candidate

As Head of Undergraduate Photographic Studies, I am responsible for the day to day running and management of both BA (Hons) Photography in the Arts and BA (Hons) Documentary Photography and Visual Activism courses. I teach every aspect of both the undergraduate and postgraduate provision, delivering theoretical lectures, seminars as well as practice based workshops. My expertise lie in exhibition display and installation, alongside the ‘book’ as a vehicle for photographic and fine art practice.

Over the past fifteen years, I have exhibited both nationally and internationally in group and solo shows. Recent shows include Materia Gallery, Rome, The Photographers Gallery, London, Flowers Gallery, London, Jerwood Space, London, Ffotogallery, Wales, Format Festival, Derby, ICA, London and Serchia Gallery, Bristol.

My practice situates itself at the intersection between the photographic image and installation. Often working with chemically unstable materials under specific conditions, the methodologies for creating my work propose to destabilise the audiences relationship to spectatorship, which has traditionally been seen as aesthetically and politically passive.

I hold an MA (Photography) School of Fine Art, from the Royal College of Art (2011) and am currently a practice based PhD candidate.

In Walter Benjamin’s 1931 essay “A Short History of Photography” it is no accident that Benjamin begins not with clarity of vision and knowledge, but with an evocation of a “fog” that surrounds the beginning of photography. This “fog” creates a dense atmosphere, an allegory Benjamin aligns to that of the work of memory, as that which oscillates between positions. In its “luminous mist”, the photographic image bares the limit of its own representation due to the unstable chemicals used to create depicition.

Though some ninety years have passed since Benjamin’s writings on the “inaugural haze” that shrouded early photography, a new “fog” coalesces on our contemporary horizons, this time dense with anxiety.

My research and practice brings together chemically unstable photographic objects that, like early photographic representations, uncomfortably shimmer at the edges of visibility.

Delving into the surrounding Welsh landscapes of my youth, I choose to depicts industrial relics; disused mine shafts, contaminated land, demolished radar stations; a world that registers the traces of its own disappearance. Interested in geological time, I search for all that has been, or will soon be removed from the history of these lands. By returning to that which was once present, my research takes the form of a historical haunting, pointing to our uncertain future.

Solo Exhibitions

2022 | Objects to Place in a Tomb, Serchia Gallery, Bristol.
2020 | Seasons Over the Liquid World, Art Lacuna, London.
2018 | Latent Call, Matèria Gallery, Rome, Italy.
2017 | Vessels and Vestiges, Jerwood Project Space, London, UK.
2015 | Divisible Remainder, Mission Gallery, UK.
2014 | Deviated Light, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, UK.
2013 | Latency Principles, Nextart, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2021 | JPA, Mission Gallery, Swansea.
2021 | Unstable/Sustainable, Format Festival, Derby.
2020 | With Monochrome Eyes, Borough Road Gallery, London.
2019 | The Arcades Project, Duke Street, Cardiff.
2019 | 50:50, SCA, Swansea.
2018 | Fields One, Sluice HQ, London.
2018 | September Project, Bayswater, London.
2018 | Photoworks Presents, Collaborate, London.
2018 | Time Pieces, 0-0-1, Milan.
2017 | Hyperanalogue, The Photographers Gallery, London.
2017 | Scratch the Surface, Aldama Fabre Gallery, Bilbao, Spain.
2017 | Archipelago, MIA, Milan.
2016 | Burning with Pleasures, a r c h i p e l a g o, Materia, Rome, Italy.
2016 | DKUK, London.
2016 | Between the Lines, a r c h i p e l a g o, Roz Bar Gallery, London.
2016 | Ouvrage, a r c h i p e l a g o, Twenty 14 Contemporary, Milan.
2016 | Snæfell (w/ Philipp Dorl), Filet Filet, London.
2016 | Murmur, Flowers Gallery, London.
2016 | I Never Read, Art Book Fair, Basel.
2016 | Peckham 24, Photo London.
2016 | Dark Adaptation (Part One & Two), South Kiosk/Seen Fifteen.
2016 | Moving Still, Rough Print Gallery, Dalston, London.
2015 | a r c h i p e l a g o, Off Print Paris Photo.
2015 | a r c h i p e l a g o, London.
2015 | Diffusion Festival, Cardiff.
2015 | The London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery.
2015 | Offprint, Tate Modern, Turbine Hall, London.
2014 | NY Art Book Fair, MoMa PS1, New York.
2014 | Unseen Photo Fair, Amsterdam.
2014 | Room & Book, ICA, London.
2014 | As is the Sea, Henry Moore Gallery, London.
2014 | Fix, South Kiosk, London.
2013 | Pilot, King Henry's Road, London.
2013 | 21st Century Art and Design, Christie's London, St. James, London.
2013 | SHOW, Royal College of Art, London.
2013 | Splinter, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London.
2013 | From Common Differences, Diffusion Festival, Cardiff.
2013 | The Part and The Whole, Galleri Monitor, Gothenburg, Sweden.
2012 | All I want…, October Gallery, Bloomsbury, London.
2011 | This Unfolds, Ffotogallery, Cardiff.
2010 | A Book About Death, MoMa Wales.
2010 | Fugitive Testimony, Mission Gallery, Swansea.

Awards & Commissions

2018 | Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Shortlisted.
2018 | Latent Call, Matèria, D.O.O.R, Winner.
2017 | ING Unseen Talent Award, Shortlisted.
2017 | Paul Huf Award, Shortlisted.
2017 | Jerwood / Photoworks Award, Shortlisted.
2015 | Jane Philips Award.
2015 | Arts Council of Wales Production Grant.
2015 | Jerwood / Photoworks Award, Shortlisted.
2013 | Flint House Commission, Waddesdon Manor.
2013 | John Hedgecoe Scholarship.

Publications

Too Good To Be Photographed, ed Paul Paper, 2017 (Lugemik, Estonia)
Latent Frequencies, 2014 (Ffotogallery / Bookworks, London)
As is the Sea, 2014 (Royal College of Art, London)
Waving Flags, 2013 (Black Dog Publishing, London)
From Common Differences, 2013 (Swansea Metropolitan University, Swansea)
All I Want is Out of Here, 2012 (Royal College of Art, London)
January, 2010 (Self Published Artist book)

Employment

2022 - Head of Undergraduate Photographic Studies, Swansea College of Art, University of Wales.
2012 - Present | Lecturer MA Fine Art, Lecturer BA (Hons) Photography in the Arts & Contextual Studies, Swansea College of Art, University of Wales.
2009-2011 - Claire de Rouen Books, London.

External Examining

2020 - 2025 | External Examiner, BA Photography, London College of Communication.
2017 - 2021 | External Examiner, BA Fine Art, University Centre Somerset.

Visiting Lecturing

2018 | Visiting Lecturer, Royal College of Art
2018 | Visiting Lecturer, Arts University Bournemouth
2013 | Visiting Lecturer, London College of Communication