CV - Jessa Fairbrother

Education:

Currently:

Collaborative Doctoral Award (PhD Student)
Kingston University & Wellcome Collection, 2025–2029. Fully funded by Techne AHRC. Practice-led research into embodiment, maternal histories, and cosmic artefacts through textile, photography, and expanded drawing. Supervisors – Kingston University: Associate Professor Dr. Daniela Perazzo and Professor Sara Upstone; Wellcome Collection: Dr. Elma Brenner and Curator Emily Sargent.

MA Photographic Studies, University of Westminster, (2010); Drama Studio London (1997); BA English, Durham University (1996).

Galleries: The Print Sales Gallery @ The Photographers’ Gallery, London and Anzenberger Gallery, Vienna.

Public Collections

Unique work held in permanent collection of Amgueddfa Cymru | Museum Wales, UK and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, US.
Selected prints from ‘Conversations with my mother’ held in Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol, UK
Permanent Collection of NHS, UK
‘Conversations with my mother’ Artist Book is held in ‘Rare Books and Manuscripts’, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, US; ‘Tate Britain Library’, Tate Britain, London, UK, ‘National Art Library’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK and the ‘Hirsch Library’, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, US

Commissions

2024 – Bristol Photography Festival,Co-Stitch Project & Brigstow Research Institute
2022 – Wellcome Collection: What is Violence? Digital Stories
2020 – Wellcome Collection: Reframing Sex Work Digital Stories.

Performance talks

2017 – The Freud Museum conference on ‘Mourning and Melancholia’: Conversations with my mother as a monologue
2016 – Redeye, Hothouse, Conversations with my mother

Awards

2025 – Techne, Collaborative Doctoral Award, full funding.
2025 – Arts Council England: DYCP Award
2024 – Gane Trust
2023 – Oppenheim-John Downes Trust
2023 – RWA Academician
2021 – Arts Council England: DYCP Award
2020 – Arts Council England: Emergency Response Grant
2020 – a-n The Artist Information Company: Artist Bursary (for Fencing Manual for Women project)
2019 – QEST scholarship for Certificate Historical Hand Embroidery, Royal School of Needlework
2017 – GRAIN Portfolio Award, FORMAT Festival (for Fencing Manual for Women project) – winner
2016 – Short-listed for Jerwood Open Makers Award
2016 – a-n The Artist Information Company: Travel Bursary
2013 – Genesis Imaging Award, Format Festival – winner
2004 – Arts Council of Wales Project Grant: An Important View

Solo exhibitions

2021 – Bristol Museum and Art Gallery “Beyond the frame” – intervention in main collection as part of Bristol Photography Festival: A sense of place
2019 – Print Sales Gallery, The Photographers’ Gallery, London: Constellations and Coordinates
2017 – Birmingham City University (School of Jewellery), Armour Studies (regarding skin)
2005 – Oriel Queens Hall Gallery, Pembrokeshire, An Important View

Selected group exhibitions

2024-26 – Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood – Hayward Touring show, curated by Hettie Judah. Shown at Arnolfini, Bristol; MAC, Birmingham; Millennium Galleries, Sheffield; DCA, Dundee and currently Visual, Carlow, Ireland.
2025 – Skin Deep – RWA, Bristol
2024 – RWA, 171st Open, Bristol: exhibiting as Academician
2023 – Flowers Gallery, Small is Beautiful (41st Edition) London
2023 – RWA, Academician Candidate Show, Bristol
2023 – UNIT, Re-Naissance [online] London
2023 – Serchia M(Other), Bristol
2023 – RWA Photography Open, Bristol
2021 – Print Sales / The Photographers’ Gallery [online] The Trapeze Artist, London
2019 – Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool: 209 Women
2018 – Portcullis House, 209 Women, London
2018 – Mall Galleries, ING Discerning Eye; (Invited artist), London
2018 – Anzenberger Gallery Handmade IV, Vienna
2018 – Print Sales Gallery at The Photographers’ Gallery, Work in Process, London
2017 – A Decade of Gifts and Acquisitions Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
2017 – The Barge House, London: FIX Photo Festival
2017 – RWA, 164th Open. Bristol
2016 – Salisbury Arts Centre, Threads, Salisbury
2016 – Anzenberger Gallery, Handmade III Vienna
2016 – Waterperry Gardens, Art in Action, Oxford
2016 – Gazebook, Sicily
2016 – Photobook Bristol First Books
2014 – The Mall Galleries, ING Discerning Eye, London
2013 – RWA, 161st Open, Bristol

Residencies

2023 – DOMUS Residency, Galatina, IT
2024 – Hosking Houses Trust, UK

Art Fairs | Other

2022 – Magnum Square Print Sale
2022 – Collect, London (QEST)
2021 – Photo London (The Photographers’ Gallery)
2019 – Photo London (The Photographers’ Gallery)
2018 – UNSEEN Amsterdam (The Photographers’ Gallery) and Photo London (The Photographers’ Gallery)
2018 – Photo London (The Photographers’ Gallery)
2017 – Parallel Vienna (Anzenberger Gallery)

Press | Publications | Podcasts

2025 – ‘Into the Void – Dealing with Pain When There’s No Happy Ending.’ The Meaningful Life – Podcast with Andrew G. Marshall
2025 – Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood – Podcast with Dr. Clare Johnson, UWE
2025 – Wellcome Digital Stories: Letting Go of IVF
2024 – Burlington Contemporary – Review: Millie Walton – Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood
2024 – Independent – Interview, Chloe Ashby – The Women Breaking Down Art’s Final Taboo: Motherhood
2024 – i – Hettie Judah – Why is art about motherhood still taboo?
2022 – Darklight Art – Radical Softness -Interview with Mimi Gray
2021 – Photomonitor – Making things to make people feel things – Interview with Shyama Laxman
2021 – British Journal of Photography – Beyond the Frame review, Isaac Huxtable
2021 – Photomomitor – Beyond the Frame review, Shyama Laxman
2021 – Elephant: Why Is It So Hard to Talk About Fertility? Hettie Judah
2020 – Tate Papers, Severance: Jessa Fairbrother’s Conversations with My Mother, Jennifer Mundy
2020 – Mam: Maternal Art Magazine: Stay at Home
2018 – Photomonitor: Conversations with my mother + essay: Working with emotions in photography
2017 – The Eye of Photography: ‘FORMAT Festival: discoveries from the portfolio reviews’, Holly Roussell
2016 – Photoworks, ‘Showcase’: Conversations with my mother
2016 – LensCulture, ‘Spotlight’: Conversations with my mother
2012 – Interwoven, Pippa Oldfield: I Did
2012 -‘Communication between FineArtists,Academics and Gender:A new practice?’Bulletine, Norway

Symposiums

Future – Medical Humanities International PhD Summer School “Bodies and Embodiment in Critical Medical Humanities”, Sweden.
2024 – Picturing the Unseen: Grief and Labour in and Out of Motherhood, MAC, Birmingham
2021 – Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Whose Gaze?
2018 – UWE, Bristol, The body as canvas
2017 – Birkbeck, University of London, The Pregnant Archive
2016 – Birmingham City University “Talking Practice”
2016 – Salon, 10×10 Photobooks, New York: Conversations with my mother
2016 – Photobook Bristol: In conversation with Mariela Sancari
2016 – Flockomania, Birmingham City University: Beyond Jewellery: Performing the Body
2012 – Cornerhouse: Lost is found

Visiting Lecturer Artist Talks | Workshops | Mentoring

Independent mentoring – see here
Rising Arts Agency, Bristol: mentoring emerging photographer.
Talks/workshops at – Bath Spa University; Manchester Metropolitan University; Camarthen College of Art; Sheffield Hallam University; Birmingham City University; University West of England, Bristol; Rising Arts Agency, Bristol; Falmouth University; Gloucester University; University of South Wales

Selected Talks

2025 – Art Bar, Bristol – In Conversation with artist Pia Pack
2024 – Arnolfini: Art of the Maker
2023 – Griffin Museum (US) [online] – Conversations with my mother
2023 – Watershed, Bristol – post-film Panel Discussion after All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, with Dr. Marianne Mulvey and Professor Mandy Rose
2021 – The Photographers’ Gallery – Head, Heart, Hands – in conversation with artist Alexandra Davenport.
2021 – Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
2020 – IG Live for Work Show Grow
2020 – Redeye, Manchester – guest speaker – Snapshot.
2020 – London Art Fair for The Photographers’ Gallery panel discussion -‘Women Photographers’.
2019 – The Photographers’ Gallery, London – Photography and Health (guest speaker at The Social)
2018 – The Photographers’ Gallery, London – Sensing the image (guest speaker) 2016 – The Photographers’ Gallery, London – Tactile Photos
2016 – Miniclick @ The Photographers’ Gallery, London