Paula Gortazar is a photography researcher, artist and writer. She was awarded a PhD in Photography from the University of Westminster, specialising in Eastern and Central European photography from the communist period. The results of her doctoral investigation have been published in different academic journals, including Photography and Culture and Fotocinema.

Paula’s artistic practice explores the relation between art and politics. She is particularly interested in the aesthetics of ‘the political’, as well as in contemporary forms of censorship and surveillance in the Western world. Her work has been widely exhibited in Canada, the USA, Germany, the UK and Spain, including venues like The Photographers’ Gallery, and published in different international media, such as the British Journal of Photography or EXIT magazine. She also contributes as an independent writer for Source Photographic Review and C4 Journal.

Her latest research activity focuses on the relationship between photography and human-computer interaction. Her current project, You, Me, Like, studies the links between image perception and social media engagement in the context of domestic imagery. By analysing the impact that individual profile algorithms have on the images that users are presented with (and tend to react to), the research aims to through a light into the relation between a photographed lived experience and the effective meaning of online interactions with shared images from the ‘digital other’.

For further information about Paula’s research and teaching experience also see:

https://www.westminster.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/directory/gortazar-paula