Dr Wiebke Leister

Biography

Dr Wiebke Leister is a German artist and researcher. She studied photography, typography and media theory at Essen University (Folkwang University of the Arts) and gained a PhD from the Royal College of Art in London.

Her research challenges the limitations of photographic representation, often focusing on the human image as a canvas, a medium or an agent. Committed to interdisciplinary approaches and working in collaboration, her work seeks transformative and performative conditions of portraiture in which the image becomes a catalyst for an interplay between image and imaginary referent. Actively involving the viewer in the promises and failures of visual representation, her research engages with the interfacing of human boundaries and explores how we encounter ourselves in others. As an artist she works with photography, projection, performance, drawing and collage; her writing is in English and German and her written practice spans from academic papers to text-based installations for the gallery.

Wiebke has been teaching on MA Photography at LCC since 2004, and was its Course Leader from 2013-21. Building on methods of artistic research and experimental pedagogics, she established MA Photography internationally with a focus on conceptual lens-based installation practices. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, recipient of a collaborative UAL Teaching Scholars Award 2016-18, and supervises PhD students across different UAL colleges. She also taught fine art photography, integration of theory & practice, intermedial practices and artistic research at Fachhochschule Bielefeld, Folkwang Universität der Künste and The Photographers' Gallery in London. 2018-19 she was DAAD Professor of Photography in Bielefeld, funded by the German government as part of an ongoing internationalisation programme.

Wiebke has also worked in public institutions, organising international events, conferences and exhibitions. She is a co-organiser of the Photography and the Contemporary Imaginary Research Hub and a core member of the Photography and the Archive Research Centre at University of the Arts London. Ongoing research groups include the Theatre of Photography research network, the Writing Photographs teaching and research project and the Interdisciplinary Practice Research Forum. Since 2021 she is a member of the UAL Shared Campus Steering Group and on the Advisory Board of the Journal of Arts Writing by Students.