Dr Gary Bratchford

Gary’s research focuses on three domains of visual practice and critical thinking:

Firstly, Gary is co-developing research (with Dr Dennis Zuev) on verticality, new aerial visions and scopic regimes. The project is entitled ‘A Sociology of the Sky’. This project’s first output is an edited collection of papers in the Visual Studies Journal (forthcoming 2020) as well as a core component of their co-edited monograph, Visual Sociology: Practices and Politics in Contested Spaces (forthcoming 2020, Palgrave). A subsequent, edited volume with Palgrave is due in 2023.

Secondly, though his collaborative, community-based practice with artist, Robert Parkinson, Gary uses Socially Engaged approaches to examine how photography can positively impact upon health and wellbeing in community settings.

Recent publications in the field include his book, As and When: Documenting Socially Engaged Practice (2017), Socially Engaged Photography and Wellbeing: Reflections on a Case Study in the Northwest of England (Journal of London Primary Care, 2018) and an essay for Stephen Willat’s CONTROL magazine in 2019.

Lastly, Gary is writing, researching, and developing visual methods to map urbanisation and gentrification in Manchester and Salford, UK with recent outputs including: “Visualising the invisible: a guided walk around the Pendleton Housing Estate, Salford, UK” (2019) and a chapter in an edited volume, Gentrification Around the World Vol 1: Gentrifiers and the displaced (Palgrave, 2020).