çNicky Bird makes work using material from the past, with the aim of examining the contemporary relevance of found photographs. Question for Seller is fuelled by her interest in family photographs that appear on eBay. The artist buys photographs no-one else bids for, with the connotation that they are unwanted, and therefore with no significant value. She approaches the seller with the question: How did you come across the photos and what, if anything, do you know about them? Their replies, however brief, are as important as the photographs they are selling, sometimes alluding to a part of a discarded family history, or the everyday, where personal photographs have long since lost their original meaning.  On the 1st of February 2007, Bird’s one-off physical ‘family album’ – which combined original photographs and eBay sellers’ statements - was valued similarly, auctioned off on eBay for £205.

NICKY BIRD is an artist whose practice combines photography and interdisciplinary collaboration. Her work often investigates the theme of photography and hidden history, portraiture and genealogy. This is demonstrated through a number of recent projects such as Tracing Echoes 2001, realised as both an exhibition and a publication, and through to the website http://www.unknownsitter.com.  A number of site specific residencies have been pivotal to Bird: Dimbola Lodge, the UK home of Julia Margaret Cameron (2000), Rhode Island’s Arcade, the oldest Indoor Shopping Mall in the USA (2000/1), the Scottish historic house of Hospitalfield (2003) and Edinburgh’s Stills Gallery (2003-4).
Bird has received several awards for her work.  In 2005 she was a recipient of an Alt-W Creative On-line Works Award, and secured a British Academy Research Grant. In 2004, a National Lottery Award from Scottish Arts Council supported a limited edition bookwork, Imprinted Matter, which was exhibited in the group show Inside/Out at Stills (Edinburgh).  In June 2006 she was appointed as a PhD Co-Ordinator at Glasgow School of Art, after nine years as an Associate Senior Lecturer on the BA in Contemporary Photographic Practice at Northumbria University. Question for Seller was most recently exhibited at Belfast Exposed in 2007.

For more information, please visit: http://www.nickybird.com