Natasha Caruana

Integrating archival materials – often from digital sources such as the Internet – Natasha challenges perceptions of both the formal and topical limits of photography, establishing a visual language which exemplifies her contemporary approach.

Natasha developed an interest in photography shortly before leaving school. Having been left a Pentax K1000 by her grandfather, she spent the summer experimenting and by the autumn had deferred her intentions to study business at university, instead researching arts foundation courses.

Natasha went on to earn an MA in Photography at the Royal College of Art, London, and is now recognised as one of the most innovative, experimental women in photography.

The research element of her work is perhaps influenced by her academic background; in projects such as Love Bomb, original photographs are presented alongside newspaper clippings. The adjacent headlines and articles detail shocking acts of violence perpetrated in the wake of romantic relationships, amplifying the emotional context of the work.

During research for Love Bomb, Natasha discovered that scientists studying the physical nature of hate have observed how romantic love and hatred provoke similar neuron activity in the brain.

Chronicling her personal oscillation between love and loss, the series pairs photographs of ‘love bombs’ with text listing their ingredients, culminating in a kind of ‘scrapbook’ illustrating Natasha’s own ill-fated attempt to stay in love.

In another series focusing on the ephemera of romance, Fairytale for Sale foregrounds photographs posted online by former brides seeking a buyer for their used wedding dresses. With their identities obscured, the couples’ private celebrations transition into a public sphere, rendering them ‘theatres of marriage’ populated by emblematic signifiers.

Analysing the effect of divorcing these symbols from their context, Fairytale for Sale examines the commercial architecture of romance and its relationship to the everyday reality of romantic relationships.

Recently, Natasha has undertaken commissions and residencies with The Museum of Broken Relationships, Los Angeles, Photoworks, Brighton and the Open Data Institute, London.

In 2019, her commission Timely Tale – an interactive film project staged in a reconstructed NHS waiting room – was nominated for the long-list of The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.

Her work is held in the public collections of The British Library, The Women’s Library, BMW Art and Culture, France, The Nicéphore Niépce Museum, France, The Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, UK and The Kinsey Institute in the United States.