Photographer Alicia Bruce reflects on her practice with a focus on personal projects and campaigns to affect social change. Includes reflection on Menie: TRUMPED challenging Donald Trump’s Scottish developments, Zero Tolerance’s Violence Unseen raising awareness of men’s violence against women and 209 Women celebrating 100 years since women got the vote.

Alicia photographed the residents in legal conflict with Trump International Golf Links Scotland, President Donald Trump’s contested golf course on the coast of Aberdeenshire. Alicia’s image of Mike and Sheila Forbes, re-enacting Grant Wood’s sinister painting, ‘American Gothic’, evokes something of the tension in the original painting, with the Forbes defiant subjects ready to fight for their land, became widely exhibited and published.

Alicia Bruce’s award winning photographs have been exhibited and published internationally, winning several artists’ residencies and bursaries including the Royal Scottish Academy Morton Award. Her images have featured in national press including The Times, The Scotsman, BBC News and STV News, and are represented in several public and private collections including the National Galleries of Scotland, St Andrews University pecial Collections and the Royal Scottish Academy. Her commercial portfolio includes the National Galleries of Scotland, Project Ability, engage, Zero Tolerance, Edinburgh World Heritage, Crisis and more. She was featured in The List Magazine’s 2018 Hot 100. Alicia currently teaches photography short courses at the Centre for Open Learning.

Our Open Lectures series celebrates the research, projects, collaborations, events and professional practices of our teaching staff at the Centre for Open Learning. Our courses are designed and taught by an extraordinary range of talented and dedicated academics, practitioners and professionals. Many enjoy long and distinguished careers whilst others are in the early stages, perhaps in the midst of their postdoctoral study or working on their first book or exhibition.

Our new series will bring our learning community together to listen and engage with our tutors, as they reveal the story behind their own practices and research, perhaps through a funded project, a commission or continuing professional development.