Siân Davey


Siân Davey is a British photographer. Her work focuses on her family, community and self, and is informed by her background in psychology.
Davey has published two books, Looking for Alice and Martha. In 2017 she had a solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London and was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Hood Medal for Looking for Alice.

Life and work

Davey was born in Brighton in 1964. She has studied painting and social policy and more recently, photography. She was a psychotherapist for 15 years before taking up photography in 2014.
Her photographic practice focuses on her family, community and self, and is informed by her background in psychology. Her series Looking for Alice is a portrait of her daughter Alice who has Down syndrome. One of the photographs from this series was selected for the 2014 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition. The series was published by Trolley Books in 2015. In 2016, Looking for Alice was shortlisted for Photobook of the Year in the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards.
Davey's teenage daughter Martha assisted with the creation of Looking for Alice. This led to Davey's next series Martha that focuses on Martha and her teenage friends. Two photographs from this series were selected for the 2016 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition.
In 2017, Davey exhibited her series We Are Family at the National Portrait Gallery, London. In creating the series, Davey travelled across Britain and photographed 31 families in 21 days.

Publications