Artist Masterclass with Olivia Arthur
A three-day masterclass led by Magnum photographer Olivia Arthur, part of Bristol Photo Festival 2026
This is a 3-day workshop, running Friday 6th – Sunday 8th November. Each day will run from 10am-5pm. A full itinerary will be sent to all attendees in advance.
Olivia Arthur’s career is one defined by both continuity and reinvention. Her early projects, including Jeddah Diary and The Middle Distance, often examined the lives of women as they navigated questions of personal freedom and societal expectations.
More recently, her work has shifted closer to home, exploring questions of intimacy and the body, catalysed by her own experiences of motherhood. Her photographic language has also evolved, moving beyond traditional documentary practice to embrace large-format photography, collage and text. These new formats have slowed Arthur’s approach in tactile and deliberate ways. Throughout this evolution, a series of common threads can be found, asking what it means to truly see one another in ways that are both vulnerable and intimate, always paying attention to the body.
We invite you to join us for a three-day workshop led by Olivia, designed to help you move your practice forwards.
Over the three days, you will look at your recent projects and wider body of work to identify what motivates you, the subjects and ideas that matter to you, and the visual approaches you use to explore them. Together, you will consider what feels most authentic to your practice, where you want to take your work next, and how you can make meaningful, practical decisions about its development. Alongside this reflection, you will undertake a short micro-project during the workshop, giving you the opportunity to test ideas, experiment with your approach and put your thinking into practice.
Drawing on her experience of working across diverse subjects, photographic languages and perspectives, Olivia is well placed to support photographers at any stage. Whether you are feeling stuck, looking for a new direction or seeking to deepen an established practice, this workshop will help you move forward with greater clarity, confidence and purpose.
This masterclass is part of the Bristol Photo Festival programme. View the full programme here
Biography
Olivia Arthur was born in London in 1980. She studied mathematics at Oxford University and photojournalism at the London College of Printing. She began working as a photographer in 2003 after moving to Delhi, and was based in India for two and a half years. In 2006, she left for Italy to take up a one-year residency with Fabrica, during which she began working on a series about women and cultural divides. Her first book, Jeddah Diary (2012), follows the lives of young women in Saudi Arabia. Her second book, Stranger (2015), is a journey into Dubai seen through the eyes of the survivor of a shipwreck.
Arthur’s work has been exhibited internationally and is included in institutional collections in the UK, USA, Germany, and Switzerland. She is co-founder of Fishbar, a publisher and space for photography in London. She became a member of Magnum Photos in 2013 and in 2020 was elected as its president.
TICKETS
Tickets are available via headfirst. Early Bird tickets are £350. As the workshop approaches, the ticket price will increase to £400. Current UWE Students receive a 40% discount on full-price tickets.
