Wendy McMurdo

Wendy McMurdo (born 1962) specialises in photography and digital media. In 2018 she was named as one of the Hundred Heroines, an award created by the Royal Photographic Society to showcase the best of global contemporary female photographic practice.[2]

Wendy McMurdo
Born1962 (age 58–59)[1]
Edinburgh, Scotland
NationalityScottish
EducationUniversity of Westminster
Goldsmiths, University of London
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn
Edinburgh College of Art
Known forart, contemporary fine art, photography, digital media

Early life and education

McMurdo was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.[1] She attended Edinburgh College of Art, Goldsmiths, University of London and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York[1] where she first became interested in photography.

Career

Her work centres around the relationship between technology and identity and she has produced several influential bodies of work which explore this theme.

In the mid-1990s her first one-person show In a Shaded Place – the digital and the uncanny [3] was toured extensively by the British Council. Her subsequent exhibition at the Centro de Fotografia Universidad de Salamanca in 1998 resulted in the publication of the first monograph[4] on her work. She has been included in numerous group shows, including Unheimlich, curated by Urs Stahel at the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, Scanner, curated by Lawrence Rinder at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, California, The Anagrammatical Body – The Body and its Photographic Condition at the Neue Galerie Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria, and Only Make Believe – Ways of Playing, curated by Marina Warner at Compton Verney, UK.

Her work has been commissioned by the Science Museum, London and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, and is in a number of collections including that of the Fotomuseum Winterthur, the British Council, agnès b, the National Galleries of Scotland and Seattle's Henry Art Gallery, Washington, USA. Her work has been the subject of documentaries for BBC Two, Channel 4 [5] and the National Galleries of Scotland.[6]

Recent commissions include Indeterminate Objects (classrooms) for The Media Wall, The Photographers' Gallery, London, October 2017 - January 2018; a site-specific project "The World in London" for The Photographers' Gallery exhibited during the 2012 Summer Olympics, and The Skater [7] for the Ffotogallery in Wales, 2009, to celebrate 30 years of photographic commissioning.

Recent exhibitions include "Gravitas", curated by Christiane Monarchi for Photo50[8] at the London Art Fair, 2017; DATA RUSH at the Old Sugar Factory in Groningen for the 22nd Noorderlicht International Photofestival; "Digital Play : Wendy McMurdo Collected Works 1995 - 2012" at Street Level Photoworks,[9] Glasgow, as part of GENERATION - 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland, a programme of exhibitions across Scotland in 2014. Her short film "Olympia" was showcased by Onedotzero as part of their Future Cities touring programme in 2011/2012. A retrospective of her photographic work was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts, University of Bath in 2011/2012.

She is currently a board member for Stills Gallery in Edinburgh and a senior lecturer on the MA Photography programme at Falmouth University. In 2015, McMurdo was awarded a PhD degree by publication from the University of Westminster for her work exploring the impact of the computer on photography and identity formation.[10] She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). In September 2018, McMurdo was elected to the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) as Member (Elect).[11]

Awards
Helen, Backstage, Merlin Theatre (The Glance) 1996
  • Henry Moore Fellow (1993–1995)
  • Leverhulme Research Fellow (2000-2002)
  • Creative Scotland Award (2002)
  • Leverhulme Research Fellow (2010)
  • Honorary Research Fellow, European Centre for Photographic Research, University of Wales (2010)
  • One of the Hundred Heroines by the Royal Photographic Society (2018)

Publications
  • Gilda Williams (Ed) (1997). Strange Days – British Contemporary Photography. Charta Press. Milan
  • David Brittain (Ed) (1999). Creative Camera: Thirty Years of Writing. Manchester University Press. Manchester[12]
  • Centro de Fotografia, Universidad de Salamanca (1998, 2000). Wendy McMurdo. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. Spain
  • Charlotte Cotton (2004). The Photograph as Contemporary Art (World of Art). Thames & Hudson. London
  • David Campany (Ed) (2007). Art and Photography (Themes & Movements). Phaidon Press Ltd. London
  • Daniel Rubinstein (2009). Digitally Yours; The Body in Contemporary Photography. The Issues in Contemporary Culture and Aesthetics, 2&3. pp. 181–195. ISBN 0955003725. University of the Arts. London[13]
  • Ffotogallery (2009). Wendy McMurdo: The Skater. Ffotogallery. Wales.
  • Sylvia Wolf (2010). The Digital Eye: Photographic Art in the Electronic Age. Prestel. New York
  • Hilde Van Gelder & Helen Westgeest (2011). Photography Theory in Historical Perspective: Case Studies from Contemporary Art. Wiley-Blackwell. Chichester, UK

References
  1. "Wendy McMurdo's best photograph: two bears eye up a little girl". the Guardian. 16 August 2018. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
  2. Hundred Heroines, The Royal Photographic Society, 2018. Retrieved 29 December 2018.
  3. Thompson, J. (1996). "Magical Mystories: Wendy McMurdo at the Site Gallery" mute, Issue 3. Retrieved 16 October 2008.
  4. Wendy McMurdo. Centro de Fotografia Universidad de Salamanca. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. 2000 [1998].CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. "The Mix: Express Yourself. Programme 2: Wendy McMurdo – Photographic dreamscapes," Channel 4. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
  6. "Wendy McMurdo – The Digital Mirror," National Galleries of Scotland. Retrieved 25 March 2018
  7. Wendy McMurdo: The Skater. Ffotogallery Wales. Ffotogallery. 2009.CS1 maint: others (link)
  8. Gravitas, Photo50, London Art Fair 2017. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  9. Hopkins, D. (2014). Digital Play Wendy McMurdo Collected Works 1995-2012. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  10. "Children and computers : collected works (1995-2014)," British Library EThOs e-theses online service. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
  11. Wendy McMurdo RSA (Elect), The Royal Scottish Academy, 26/09/2018. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  12. Brittain, David. Creative Camera: Thirty Years of Writing. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-5805-9 – via Google Books.
  13. http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/6239/1/digitally_yours.pdf
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