Duncan Wooldridge
Reader in Photography
I am a Reader in Photography at SODA. I teach on BA (Hons) Photography and MA Photography, and supervise doctoral research exploring experimental practice, cross-disciplinary and expanded uses of the photographic. Within the programme I have responsibility for developing research and publications and exploring forms of collaboration. In 2020 I co-founded with Sarah Pickering (Slade, UCL) the network Global Photographies, connecting with photographic institutions in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Sweden, Hungary, South Africa, Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia, amongst others.
In my work as an artist, writer and curator, I explore and seek to stretch the possibilities of photography as a technical image, focusing on materialities, experimental method and photography’s future tense. I have written for international art and photography publications and journals, including Art Monthly (UK), Artforum (US), Blok (SE), Burlington Contemporary (UK), Camera Austria (AU), Eikon (AU), Foam (NL), Over (IE), Trigger/Fomu (BE), Yet (CH), and 1000 Words (UK), and have been commissioned to write essays for exhibitions by Thomas Ruff, Dafna Talmor, Taisuke Koyama, Steffi Klenz, Ryudai Takano, Benjamin Jones and Stephan Keppel.
My curated exhibitions include Anti-Photography (Focal Point Gallery, Southend); John Hilliard: Not Black and White (Richard Saltoun, London); Moving The Image: Photography and Its Actions (Camberwell Space & Peckham 24). I am the author of To Be Determined: Photography and the Future (SPBH Editions, Milan), the co-editor of Writer Conversations (1000 Words, London), and the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies (Routledge, London). In 2022 I co-founded with Robin Tarbet object | multiple, a platform, resource and store for artists objects.
Research
Artefacts
Wooldridge, D., 2023. 'Words To Be Looked At: Image, Automation and Chance. Published as part of the Series EMIC Units/Shibboleth, by Shibboleth', Milan, Italy.
Books
Soutter, L., Wooldridge, D., 2025. 'The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies', Routledge, London.
Wooldridge, D., Soutter, L., 2023. '1000 Words: Writer Conversations', 1000 Words.
Wooldridge, D., 2021. 'To Be Determined Photography and the Future', Spbh Editions.
Hilliard, J., 2014. 'John Hilliard Not Black and White : Abstraction and the Monochrome in the Work of John Hilliard'.
Book Chapters
Wooldridge, D., 2025. 'The Stickiness of Images: Materiality and Attention in Contemporary European Photographies'. In Soutter, L., Wooldridge, D. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies, pp. 249-260, Routledge, London.
Wooldridge, D., 2024. 'A Score For The Fullness of Perception'. In Niko Luma, Adagissimo, Punctum Gallerii, Tallinn.
Wooldridge, D., 2022. 'Mark Duffy, and What We Might Do With Photographs'. In Mark Duffy, Vote No.2, Mark Duffy.
Wooldridge, D., 2021. 'The Open Photograph: An Essay on Niko Luoma's Adaptations'. In Niko Luoma For Each Minute, Sixty-Five Seconds, Hatje Cantz.
Wooldridge, D., 2021. 'The Photograph is a Question: Takano and Photographic Seeing'. In Nakanishi, H. (eds.) Takano Ryudai: Daily Photographs 1999-2021, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, The Asahi Shimbun.
Wooldridge, D., 2020. 'Technology and interaction: Penelope umbrico's TVs from craigslist'. In Photography Reframed: New Visions in Contemporary Photographic Culture, pp. 3-7.
Wooldridge, D., 2020. 'Tomorrow's headlines are today's fish and chip papers: Some thoughts on 'response-ability''. In Photography Reframed: New Visions in Contemporary Photographic Culture, pp. 31-35.
Internet Publications
Wooldridge, D., 2022. 'The Recursive Image', https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2022/thomas-ruff-dope/essay-by-duncan-wooldridge.
Wooldridge, D., 2021. 'Paulius Petraitis: 'A man with dark hair and a sunset in the background'', https://blokmagazine.com/paulius-petraitis-a-man-with-dark-hair-and-a-sunset-in-the-background/.
Wooldridge, D., 2021. 'Reflections on Pablo Lerma's 'It Doesn't Stop at Images'', https://photomonitor.co.uk/essay/pablo_lerma_duncan_wooldridge/.
Journal Articles
Wooldridge, D., 2023. 'Redistributions of the Sensitized: Photographic Matter and Shifting Configurations after Mining Photography', Trigger, 5: Energy, pp. 2-10.
Wooldridge, D., 2021. 'From Magical To Experimental Thinking: An Essay on Photographic Agency and Futurity', Over, 2.
Other Outputs
Wooldridge, D., 2022. 'Concrete Thinking, An Essay on Steffi Klenz'.