Recent Work by Michelle Lord
Michelle Lord’s photographs explore the connections between fiction and architecture, and investigate how this relationship can visually represent or transform the historic and modern built environment that surrounds us. Drawing upon literary texts which refer to architectural or geographical idylls; her current work depicts narratives which offer differing perspectives on the concept of utopia.

Working non-digitally, her images represent a series of carefully crafted illusions that seek to create an unerring depiction of a world which can only be understood from a single viewpoint – that of the camera. An intricate hybrid of photography, sculpture and architecture; the artificial eye of the camera subtly transforms her meticulously hand made models into large sprawling complexes and new imaginary cityscapes.

Lord has had twelve solo exhibitions to date and her work has been selected for numerous group exhibitions in both the UK and internationally. Her work has been exhibited at festivals including Architecture Week, London Art Fair, New Generation Arts, Hereford Photography Festival, Aarhus Arts Festival and Rhubarb-Rhubarb - The UK's International Photographic Review. This autumn she was one of three artists selected by Rhubarb-Rhubarb to represent the UK at the Pingyao Photography Festival in China. Her work is currently on show as part of APhF08, Athens Photography Festival, Greece; the retrospective exhibition ‘J G Ballard: An Autopsy of the New Millennium’ at the Centre of Contemporary Culture in Barcelona, Spain; and also Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, UK.

Lord’s work has been selected as a finalist in this year’s Photolucida Critical Mass book competition in the USA and images of her work will appear in a new book ‘Paper: Tear, Fold, Rip, Crease, Cut’ by Black Dog Publishing in early 2009. Also, her work has been published in several arts journals including Eyemazing (Netherlands), Fotomagazin (Germany), Dwell Magazine (USA) and The British Journal of Photography (UK). Work from the recent photographic series ‘Future Ruins’ is featured in the new British movie ‘1234’ directed by Giles Borg.

Lord is a four time recipient of the Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts Awards and in 2007 received a Creative Development Award from the European Union. In addition, she was a facilitator and curator on the award nominated European photography project \'Re-vision\', working alongside representatives from Ireland, Turkey, Finland, Germany and Romania. Lord was educated at Liverpool Polytechnic and the University of Central England, she also lectures in Visual Art and Photography at Birmingham City University and has been a guest speaker at numerous institutions.