   Today I passed my PhD Viva!!! You can now call me Dr. Ransom.
Thank you to Helen Sear and Susan Collins for being incredibly kind and thoughtful external examiners and for all of your excellent questions. Thank you to Anne Massey for being an excellent chair and coordinating the event. And of course a massive, massive thank you to my supervisors Jean Wainwright and Anna Fox I honestly couldn't have done it without you. It will take me some time to fully process everything but I am so grateful to have such a great viva experience.
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 I am so excited for you to read this month's interview with Maria Kapajeva
Maria Kapajeva is an artist who works between the UK and Estonia, while exhibiting her works internationally. Through her artistic practice, Kapajeva looks at the identity questions of peoples being in-between or in-transition, often bringing peripheral stories to the visible centre. Kapajeva practice is multidisciplinary: she works with found and vernacular photographic images, video installations, textile and embroidery and participatory practices. Head on over to the WAPG website to learn more about Maria's project "Fluid Borders"  Co-hosting "The Art of Experimentation Online Conference" with Sophie Sherwood from Folk House Darkroom is increasingly becoming one of the most meaningful aspects of running Women Alternative Photography Group.
This international community has grown into something so special and I absolutely love coming together with artists from all over the world to nerd out and celebrate alternative photographic processes. I am always so blown away by the incredible research and practice that our international community is working on. Massive thank you to everyone who joined us this weekend. Thank you to our inspiring presenters, and thank you to Sophie for co-hosting this event with me. The recordings will go live on our YouTube channel later this week. Please sign up to the WAPG newsletter to be sent the link when it's ready. List of Speakers: Andréa Brächer Natali Bravo-Barbee Katie Eleanor Tamsin Green Rachel Guardiola Cara Jaye Harley Ngai Grieco Anna Moore Laura de Moxom Joonhee Myung (Junos) Riya Panwar Caroline Roberts  It is my absolute honour to introduce Masha Pryven for our November Women Alternative Photography Group Interview. Masha is an artist, working primarily with photography. In her work, she explores the relationship between the public and the private, and she is interested in the forms of co-authorship, collaboration and collective performances. She works with different groups of people inviting them to become her co-authors. In this month's interview Masha shares her fascinating project "Passport" which explores themes of nationality, identity and government documents. Head over to the WAPG website to read the full interview.  This month I will be exhibiting a selection of my works from my series 'Immigration Day' in the exhibition IN-BETWEEN alongside Maria Kapajeva, Ania Ready and Masha Pryven
IN-BETWEEN Borders, migration and identity are constantly in our news, yet what do those stories ever tell us about real life aside from what is urgent and immediate. News and media are plagued by drama and false sincerity. These four contemporary artists have worked to bring new narratives to the burgeoning stories of migration. Two of them, Maria Kapajeva and Masha Pryven have worked collaboratively with groups of refugees and migrants. Then Elizabeth Ransom reflects on her own family experience of migration looking acutely at the very day they moved from one country to another. While the fourth artist, Ania Ready, materialises displacement and postwar migration through soil, collected from places central to a Polish Holocaust survivor. All the artists use alternative photographic methods and/or hands-on analogue techniques to act as a cipher for the complexity of the stories they are relating, all four have been affected themselves by changing borders and migration. The layering of information in their practical methods is so different to that of photojournalism, less instant, more contemplative, perhaps in some ways more approachable. Certainly, the beauty in these images draws us in and in a slow, thoughtful manner unfolds their stories to us. Artists: Maria Kapajeva (Estonia/UK), Masha Pryven (Ukraine/Germany), Elizabeth Ransom (UK/USA), Ania Ready (Poland/UK). A Fast Forward exhibition in collaboration with Wozownia Art Gallery Curated by Anna Fox 11.10. – 9.11.2025 Opening: 11.10.2025, 7pm Wozownia Art Gallery, ul. Rabiańska 20, Toruń, Poland The exhibition is part of the Vintage Photo Festival  I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Ania Ready for the Women Alternative Photography Group interview series. In the series Life Lines artist Ania Ready had the unique opportunity to take a deep dive into archival material and interviews that led her to discover the important story of Naomi Warren Kaplan. This inspiring individual survived Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and Bergen-Belsen during World War II. Naomi’s story is one of hope, survival, and resilience. Ania Ready uses the soil chromatography process to map the journey Naomi took from Poland to the United States as she seeked safety in new lands. This project was in collaboration with the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum and their partner, Holocaust Museum Houston.
You can read the full interview on the WAPG website  I am pleased to announce that on the 15 September 2025 I started my new role of Lecturer in Photography at Central Washington University. I am excited t0 contribute to the comprehensive photography program within the Department of Art and Design. I am particularly enthusiastic about guiding students through the hybridized analog and digital curriculum offered at CWU, and I look forward to contributing to an environment that encourages critical and creative engagement with the medium.
This weekend I had the pleasure of running a cyanotype workshop for 23 children ages Kindergarten to 5th grade at Novelty Hill Farm in Duvall for the Week on the Farm Hillside summer camp.
 I'm thrilled to be joining the Central Washington University Department of Art and Design as a lecturer in photography starting this fall.
I have learned so much during my time teaching at WWU and I am endlessly grateful for the inspiring students and the support of my colleagues. WWU will always hold a very special place in my heart. Thank you Garth Amundson, Pierre Gour, Cara Jaye, Lisa Turner, Scott Kolbo, Brandon Sawaya and of course Nathan Cranston. A massive thank you to Garth whose guidance through this whole process has been invaluable. I am so grateful for your encouragement and kindness. I am far too lucky to have you in my life. I am also deeply thankful to Anna Fox and Jean Wainwright for your generous support throughout my entire career and education but in particular in helping me through this next stage. And of course Marcus DeSieno you left some big shoes to fill. I'll do my best to live up to your brilliance! Thank you for this opportunity. Over the next month I'll be finishing up my PhD, preparing for an upcoming exhibition, making a quick trip back to the UK and moving to Ellensburg. I'm looking forward to meeting the photography students at CWU and getting started on some new projects.  Not long now until the Chase the Light - Waypoint Park: Bellingham Photo Walk!!!
Have you signed up yet? Join us for a fun day of photography in Bellingham. You can bring whatever camera you like from your fancy DSLR's to the camera on your phone. We'll explore Waypoint Park with waterfront views, industrial relics, in one of the best Pacific Northwest settings. Photo Walk details: Date: Saturday June 14 from 2-5pm Location: Waypoint Park. 1145 Granary Ave Bellingham, WA 98225 What to bring: Camera, comfortable shoes, water, sunscreen Fee: Free with RSVP for Chase the Light 2025 Participants Head to the Photographic Center Northwest website to register: |
Elizabeth RansomPhd Candidate at UCA, Instructor at Western Washington University and Photographic Center Northwest, and Visual Artist working with Alternative Photographic Practices. Archives
November 2025
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