Vanessa Short

I am a London-based artist with roots in north-west England. I use photography, written texts and audio to document social history, specifically the transformation over time of industries, communities and the environment.

My work incorporates old and new processes: images captured with a digital camera emerge as photogravures*, using a long-established printmaking technique that has been revived thanks in part to the advent of digital technologies. I juxtapose these photogravures with verbatim accounts or factual information presented as textual or acoustic overlays.

*Photogravures, or ‘photopolymers’, are created by exposing thin, light-sensitive polymer-coated metal plates and printed transparencies to ultraviolet light. The ultraviolet light damages the polymer in a controlled way, resulting in an etched surface that can be inked and put through a printing press.