Festival Director

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katy@photooxford.org

Katyis a photography curator and acts as agent for a number of artists and estates. She is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Photofusion in Brixton and a member of the Maud Sulter Advisory Board. 

Katy has been focussed on photography for the past 20 years, working with museums, festivals, galleries, collectors and artists in a variety of capacities such as curating exhibitions both in the UK and abroad, advising museums and collectors on acquisitions, running artists’ residencies and prizes and mentoring photography groups as well as writing exhibition catalogues and attending portfolio reviews in the UK and abroad.

 She studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art and Magdalen College, Oxford.

Producer-Curator

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Emily Graham is an artist, producer, and curator based in London. 

She co-founded the projections based photography and moving image festival, Night Contact (2013-2014), which ran in London and in Brighton (as part of the Brighton Photo Biennial), and subsequently worked as the Cultural Manager at Magnum Photos London, working with international museums and artists on exhibitions including The Body Observed, Sainsbury Centre of Visual Arts; Martin Parr: Think of Scotland, Aberdeen Arts Gallery; Magnum Manifesto, Compton Verney. She worked as Producer for Format Festival 2025.

She is an Associate Lecturer on BA Photography at the University of West England, Bristol.

Special Projects Curator

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Alex was the Artistic Director of Photo Oxford 2023 and is curating an exhibition at the Bodleian Library in 2025 on the work of photographer, Paddy Summerfield. 

Alex runs Flow Photographic Studio where he provides imaging services to many of the world’s leading galleries and publishers. He also curates exhibitions in the Flow gallery space. 

He is a visiting lecturer on several postgrad photography courses including UAL LCC and the Northern School of Art.  

Social Media Manager

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mariasanta@photooxford.org

Mariasanta Tedesco is a manager and buyer at Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford, with many years of experience in social media management and promotional strategies. She studied European politics between Italy and France and has always loved art to the bones. 

An emerging photographer and fascinated by the surreal imaginary and its vocabulary, her projects result from her intimate reality, which she translates by exploring with self portraiture. Mariasanta is keen to examine the fascinating link between images and words, photography and the book. 

She is a contributor to various organisations, both as an artist and as a writer, she has been curating the Photo Oxford Instagram platform since 2020. She has also been collaborating with Hundred Heroines, an organisation raising the profile of women photographers. 

She was part of a theatrical company for several years, focussing on experimental performances and improvisation and has recently taken an interest in butoh, a form of avant garde Japanese dance theatre.

Design and marketing

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Etain is a writer and photographer who has worked in publishing and communications across travel, third-sector and arts organisations for over 20 years. 

Combining commercial work with large international publishers with marketing, comms and education for community-based projects, her work as a communications manager, copywriter and lead artist has led to a special interest in collaborative public art projects and facilitating socially engaged, community-based work. 

Her own practise focusses on alternative and experimental photography and the seeking out of new materials for image making.

Chair

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Born in Birmingham, where he studied architecture, Paul lived in southern Spain for 6 years before settling in Bristol where he worked in social housing development. He has been involved as a trustee in a number of charities and community organisations and has organised and promoted a range of arts and music events.

In 2004 he gained an MA in documentary photography from USW and is a practicing photographer with a wide range of subject interests. He has travelled extensively and has self-published a number of books about his journeys.

Paul is passionate about the power of photography, and the arts more generally, to change our view of the world for the better.

He enjoys walking long distance paths, playing music and cooking for friends and family. He is also a trustee of Oxfordshire Art Weeks.

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Haley (they/she) is a PhD candidate at the University for the Creative Arts, completing a practice-based thesis on photography and queer sexual health. Their studies are made possible by a Vice Chancellor’s Studentship via Fast Forward Women in Photography.

Outside of their research, Haley has extensive experience with project coordination and volunteer management, including in her work with Oxford-based period poverty initiative, WINGS. She is deeply passionate about improving inclusion and accessibility, especially within art spaces, and is excited to bring these commitments to her work with Photo Oxford.

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Eddie has a background in marketing and PR. He is excited to become a trustee and wants to help the festival find a large and diverse audience.

He is currently head of communications for Future of London, which provides leadership development opportunities for people in the built environment sector.

Before that, he was head of communications at Oxfordshire County Council. Ages ago, he was a newspaper journalist, including The Scotsman, Sunday Herald and Guardian.

He has a life-long interest in photography (including a poor A-level!) and recently started taking photographs with an actual camera again. You can see early efforts on Instagram (@edgibbpix).

Treasurer

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Kateis a Senior Lecturer in Finance and Revenue Management in the Business School at Oxford Brookes University. She was an auditor at PwC before her academic career in Macau University of Science and Technology followed by Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She appreciates nature, music, art and likes to discover beautiful things. 

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Sam is a writer, editor and art historian. She grew up in South Wales and is based in Buckinghamshire. 

Sam is a curator in the Research and Interpretation department at Tate and has worked on dozens of exhibitions at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Highlights include Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990, Soul of A Nation: Art in an Age of Black Power, Don McCullin, Conflict, Time, Photography and A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography. 

With more than ten years' experience producing inclusive, accessible, audience-focused exhibition narratives, Sam specialises in writing about politics, social justice and dispossessed histories. 

She has a BA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and an MA from the University of Liverpool’s Philosophy Department, where her research centred on social documentary and conflict photography. 

Sam also worked as an associate lecturer at Courtauld Institute of Art from 2018 to 2024 and is chair of Tate's Prospect Union.

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I am hugely excited to have joined Photo Oxford as a trustee and Company Secretary. I have been a visitor to all of the Photo Oxford festivals and it is both a privilege and a joy to join a board of talented individuals with its history of success.

My professional background is in financial risk as an actuary. I am a hobbyist photographer, collector of books and prints, and bring previous charity trustee experience. With a lifelong interest in photography, I believe the medium has much to offer everyone – from recording and learning from the outward gaze to insights and expression of the inner self.

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Joanna Vestey is a practising artist/photographer based in Oxford.  

She holds an MA in Social Anthropology and Development from SOAS and has recently completed a practice-based PhD at USW.  Her doctoral studies focused on shifts in materiality and technology and photography’s place within this. 

Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in permanent collections. 

She is passionate about social change and is always interested in how photography and the arts can be used to both affect and effect this.

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Megan Ringrose is a photographic artist working without cameras or conventional apparatus. Rooted in historical and material research, her practice explores the elemental properties of photography—light, time, process, and materiality—through experimental, often plant-based emulsions. Her work challenges photography’s boundaries, aligning it with abstraction, sculpture, and sustainable practice.

She has exhibited widely across the UK and Europe, including at Photo Fringe Brighton, The Bodleian Library (Oxford), EXP-21 Barcelona, and The Hive (Birmingham). Her writing and work appear in Tied to Light (2024), Re-Source (2022), and Outloud (2022). She is a two-time recipient of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award and was awarded an Arts Council Project Grant in 2021.

She holds an MA in Photography from Falmouth University and a BA from Queensland College of Arts, with additional study at Zurich University of the Arts. In 2024, she became a Trustee of Photo Oxford.

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Tegan is an early career museum professional based in Oxford with a background in photography and fashion history. She is currently Exhibitions & Projects Coordinator at the Ashmolean Museum, working across all their temporary shows and major exhibitions. Before that, she was Curatorial Assistant at the Watts Gallery - Artists’ Village where she co-curated Victorian Virtual Reality: Photographs from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy (2023).

She holds a BA in Fashion History & Theory from Central Saint Martins, her thesis explored female agency through the lens of fashion in post-independent Bamako, Mali. She is passionate about sustainability, social justice and making the arts accessible. 

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Seàn Wyatt is a photographer based in Oxford and a Lecturer at Kingston School of Art, where he is Course Leader of MA Photography. His practice is primarily concerned with ecology, land politics and psychological responses to landscape/s and uses psychogeography and walking techniques as his primary research methodology.

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Jane has been a Freelance Media Researcher since 2011. She helps businesses to source, clear, license and commission images and video for any project. She works with a range of clients such as publishers, picture libraries, corporate magazine publishers, large-scale retailers and independent businesses who need images for their website and marketing.

Jane’s roles within the photographic industry over the past 30 years include:-  Media Manager for Pearson Education, Research Project Manager for an art card and poster publisher, Library Manager for Camera Press photographic agency and International Picture Researcher for Getty Images.

Jane has a BA in Photographic Design specialising in 5 x 4 studio photography. She is passionate about collections and collectors and now creates and sells her own work using photography and collage techniques.

Having had a long-standing interest in photography and the photographic industry, she is now excited to be involved in Photo Oxford and the festival.