Staff Profile

Alexandra Murphy staff profile photo

Dr Alexandra Murphy

Biography

I joined Buckinghamshire New University in 2020 and have been teaching photography for over 25 years in both the UK and in South Africa for various organisations including higher education, adult learning as well as NGOs and art organisations. I am an experienced photographic practitioner and researcher with a background in editorial and documentary photography for publication as well as arts-based practice having exhibited in group and solo shows in the UK, Germany and South Africa.

I have a PhD from Middlesex University and my current practice-led research explores connections between photography and representations of the natural history museum collection, particularly regarding the preservational properties of print-making processes. My practice also explores notions of making as an embodied methodology - I utilise mixed media and incorporate digital and moving image technologies as well as traditional print processes in my work.

I am a member of the Association of Photographers and have an HEA Fellowship.

My editorial work has been featured in publications such as The Guardian, COLORS magazine, ELLE South Africa and The Observer Magazine. My specialist knowledge and practice-research focuses on long-term projects encompassing field work in museums such as the Natural History Museum, London and The Field Museum, Chicago. I was awarded funding in 2015 from the Royal Photographic Society for my project, Specere II: Fixing the Shadows, which explored the nineteenth-century salt print process. In 2020, a chapter on current research was published in the anthology, Mythologies, Identities and Territories of Photography: Forever//Now.

Examples of all my work can be viewed here.

For other research activities, visit my Research Repository.