Nicola Shipley is co-founder and Director of GRAIN Projects.
For FORMAT International Photography Festival 2021 she worked with her colleague Stephen Burke to commission, curate and produce Covid 19; A Year Lived.
Shipley works as a Producer, Curator, Project Manager, Mentor and Consultant, specialising in photography. She trained as an art historian, has an MA in History of Art, and a background in the visual arts, including in commissioning, curation, collections, public art, artists education and professional development.
Recent projects include collaborations with Photoworks, Creative People & Places – Appetite, New Art Gallery Walsall, Herbert Art Gallery, FORMAT International Photography Festival, Redeye Photography Network, Brighton Photo Fringe, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Library of Birmingham and The Hive Arts Centre.
She has worked with artists and photographers on exhibitions, publications and commissions including with Anthony Luvera, Arpita Shah, Edgar Martins, Helen Marshall, Indre Serpytyte, Kate Peters, Liz Hingley, Mark Power, Maryam Wahid, Sam Laughlin and Tom Hunter.
In 2020 Shipley commissioned and supported 22 national projects that saw artists, photographers and writers responding to the Covid 19 pandemic. In 2019-2021 she commissioned 11 photographers to make work across the rural midlands exploring people’s connection and relationship to the land, the impact of rural policy, Brexit and the environmental crisis.
Shipley is on the board of Photofusion and is a mentor for Redeye Lightbox. In 2020 she was invited to select the Source magazine BA photography awards and in 2019 was one of the selectors for the Taylor Wessing Photography Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery.
