Jamie Spillett
Profession
MA Contemporary Photography and Theory alum
College
Central Saint Martins
Person Type
Alumni
Biography
Jamie Spillett is an artist and researcher based in London, and a graduate of MA Contemporary Photography and Theory at Central Saint Martins (2025). Their practice spans photography, video, text and textiles, often taking the form of protest-inspired objects such as banners, posters and slogans.
Interview
Why did you choose to study MA Contemporary Photography and Theory at Central Saint Martins (CSM)?
Having worked freelance in photography since the start of my undergraduate studies, I came to the course looking to expand my practice into new media and rediscover ways of working that are less commercially driven. Working exclusively for clients or commissions for a few years, I wanted to redirect the focus of my work onto the communities that support me, reflecting on their needs and the pressures they face.
The balance between research and practice that forms the foundation of this course provided me with the space I needed for such a shift, allowing me to learn to introduce both political and community thought into my work in a way that felt generative.
What have you been working on since graduating?
Since graduating, I have returned to photography in a more intentional way, working with events and spaces I feel contribute to queer, minority or graduate communities in the city.
I have particularly enjoyed working with Riposte, a queer art rave that is intersectional, accessible to both those physically disabled and neurodivergent, and is super friendly which is shockingly rare nowdays!
I’m also involved with mutual aid projects in South London! After spending two years in the library reading about community support efforts and protesting, it’s been so rewarding to take part in direct action, engaging with knowledge exchanges, providing hot meals to those in need and building local community through acts of support.
What was the most interesting project you worked on during your time on the course?
Call me a nerd but my dissertation! I was quite nervous about it prior to starting the course as I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about, but after a couple terms of seminars, the time came to making our proposals and my research topic came really easily.
Historically, I often found it difficult to interlink my research and my practice, and often as I leant into one the other would go on hold, but through the direction of the course leaders and the support of my dissertation tutor this research formed a really solid foundation that the rest of my work built off of for the latter part of the course.
I ended up writing on the disappearance of queer venues in London, looking at the pitfalls of less inclusive extant gay spaces in the city, the social pressures and changes to the queer environment that have caused so many to close, and thinking about what an ideal future for intersectional space might look like.
What important piece of advice would you give to students thinking of studying this course?
I think the biggest piece of advice would be to show up! The seminars and lectures are so useful and really helped me push forward my work into new channels of thinking.
Turning up every week to my own and other students’ crits really helped me to bond with my course mates, and often my biggest breakthroughs when it came to what I wanted to make and how that might look came through engaging with the work that other students were making.
What was the highlight of your Central Saint Martins experience?
Exhibitions! Both our interim show in February of first year and our final show was such a fun opportunity to meet and work with the students on the other fine art MA courses in CSM. Since this course provides you with so many opportunities to install in crits, by the time you come to putting on public facing shows you are already very experienced with installing and you really feel in your element.
Installing really feels like a 3-5 day hangout! Of course you disagree at times, you will get frustrated and someone almost always ends up crying, but somehow you still end up having the best time and it really feels so rewarding.
What is the most important thing you learnt on the course?
The most important thing I learnt was collaborating with other artists and students around me. The joy of a masters course is people come from such a diverse set of backgrounds and whenever I wasn’t sure how to implement an idea or where I should take my work next, I had a network of chemical engineers, lawyers, fashion journalists and philosophers whose expertise I could draw upon for advice. There really isn’t any other space like it that I’ve found where such a wide range of experiences and backgrounds mix with a common goal.
Links
Follow Jamie on Instagram