Over the course of my artistic career, I have explored the intersection of image and text, working extensively with speculative fiction and photography to craft immersive, conceptual narratives. My practice has always focused on storytelling — challenging the boundaries between fiction and reality — and more recently, this exploration has evolved into time-based media, specifically audio narration and video.
The £10,000 bursary would represent a critical turning point in this transition. It would enable me to deepen my engagement with moving image and sound, allowing for the development of more technically refined and narratively ambitious works. This support would fund access to professional-grade audio and video equipment, specialist software, and training or mentorship in cinematic techniques and sound design — all essential tools for fully realizing my ideas in this new medium.
Additionally, the bursary would provide time and resources for focused research and production. This would allow me to create a new body of work that builds on the speculative elements of my earlier practice while leveraging the immersive qualities of audio-visual storytelling. I am particularly interested in how narrative voice, pacing, and visual atmosphere can conjure speculative worlds — and how these techniques can be used to engage audiences more deeply in themes of identity, memory, and imagined futures.
Ultimately, I hope to establish a distinctive voice in the fields of experimental video and audio fiction, with the long-term aim of presenting work in both gallery settings and digital platforms. This bursary would not only facilitate the technical shift but also support the conceptual continuity of my practice — enabling me to innovate while staying rooted in the narrative concerns that have always driven my work.
My artistic practice explores speculative fiction, photography, and narration to reimagine place, memory, and identity. I’m currently transitioning into audio-visual storytelling, using video and voice to build immersive, time-based narratives. The Dover Prize would support the development of a new body of work exploring the idea of lost futures in Darlington and the Tees Valley — imagined paths not taken, forgotten plans, or visions of progress that have faded over time.
Through archival research, site visits, and community engagement, I intend to gather stories, voices, and visual fragments that speak to these abandoned or altered futures. Using sound design, narration, and video, I will create speculative short films that blend fact and fiction — layering the region’s industrial and social history with imagined narratives of what might have been.
The £10,000 bursary would fund production tools, training, and time to research and create this work in close relationship with place. This project represents a key evolution in my practice and a chance to contribute meaningfully to the cultural life of the region — creating work that invites audiences to reflect on how the future is shaped, lost, or remembered through the lens of local history.
Ryan Dodd is a PhD Candidate in Fine Art photography at the University for the Creative Arts. Dodd’s research centres on the weird in order to develop new photographic methods to represent the lost futures of Portsmouth, England. By drawing on the weird literary fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and J.G. Ballard, and the image-text works of W.G Sebald and Laura Ford, Dodd’s transdisciplinary practice-based research combines speculative fiction with photography, collage and xerox art. Dodd’s work has been exhibited widely, including the Redcar Contemporary gallery in North Yorkshire, the Mall Galleries in London, the Herbert Read Gallery in Canterbury and the Glasgow Gallery of Photography. Dodd previously graduated with an MA in Photography at the University of Portsmouth, and a BSc in Web Science at the University of Southampton.
I am currently a PhD candidate in Fine Art Photography at the University for the Creative Arts.
I have an MA in Photography from the University of Portsmouth.
I received a commission by the Portsmouth City Council for the Portsmouth Creates project in 2020.
My work has been featured in an journal for experimental arts: Caustic Frolic, Vol.5 Issue 4 ⋅Spring, New York University. 2020. My work was also featured in the Flux Review: Q & A Interview, Online. 2021
Address: 175 Station Road, Drayton, Portsmouth, Hampshire, PO6 1PU, GB
Local Authority: Portsmouth City Council
