Tom Pope is a British photographer and visual artist born in 1986 in Bristol, England.
Early Career and Education
- Tom began his career as a photographer studying Photography at Swansea Metropolitian University were he gained a 1st Class (BA) He then went on to achieve a Masters
- Degree in Photography at the pestigious Royal College of Art
- Between the ages of 21-23, Tom traveled extensively throughout Europe, working as a ‘Photograph in Residence’ in Finland (2007), and in Wales and France (2009)
- In 2009, Tom made his first publication entitled, ‘The Centre for Lens Arts and Science Interaction’
Notable Series
- Fountain Bike – 1:40 Video (www.tompope.co.uk/fountainbikevideo.html)
- Weak Anarchy
- Time Bound
- Enter Right Exit Left
Tom’s Specialisation: Performance Photography
- Tom specialises in a type of photography known as performance photography. This type of photography is a very experimental method that involves the artist recording a certain performace, either subjectively or objectively. The ‘performance’ is then either made as an entire film (Tom argues that all film is technically photography), or individual moments of the performance captured as a still image
- Tom uses performance photography as a means of testing social barriers and understanding different behaviour patterns between the general public. An interpretation of Tom’s pieces could be that that the subject is the auddience and how they react, not exclusively the ‘performance
- A famous piece of perfomance photography that Tom has created is entitle ‘Fountain Bike’. In this short video, Tom records himself peddling a stationary bike attached to a water pump which squirts out water. In this satirical experiment, Tom creates a chaotic and unusual atmosphere in which the general public are completely unaware of how to respond. It is through creating these bizare scenorioes that Tom tests how people react to the bizare and unusual
Gareth Syvret – Archisle Project Leader
“Tom Pope is a great appointment for 2015 that reflects the diversity and fresh thinking in contemporary photography that drives Archisle”