Ben Harman, Director of Stills: Centre for Photography in Edinburgh, speaks to Kelly O'Brien.

Kelly O'Brien is a creative worker, documentary photographic artist, educator and PhD researcher.

Within her working practice, Kelly explores visual transformation and storytelling in connection to personal and political narratives through making and theory. She is interested in the photographic relationship to absence, investigating how invisibility can be utilised as a tool of possibility and perception to visualise erased and misrepresented histories. The themes that currently anchor her work are class, labour, family, care and liberation.  

Kelly is curious about the potential in experimental collaboration and collective participation, in both the production and the dissemination of her work. She works within an intersectional feminist framework where an ethical questioning of the status quo and power relations are central. 

She has been the recipient of several awards and her work has been widely exhibited and published. With over 15 years of experience as a creative labourer, Kelly has worked as a community arts facilitator and producer, collaborating on projects that focus on radical social justice. She also lectures in photography, working in partnership with universities and art institutions in the UK and internationally.

Instagram  @kelly.o.brien

Episode music by Dom mino'