Heather McDonough’s photographic work is consistently concerned with 'series' - sequences placed within a specific context. The work is about memory, and location, obsession and curiosity and fuelled by the need to keep and collect. She has exhibited in this country and abroad.
From 2002 – 2005 I curated a series of photographic exhibitions especially commissioned for Alternative Arts as part of the Spit-Lit Festival celebrating women’s writing at the Spitz Gallery in London. The first of these exhibitions, Domestic Icebergs, explored issues surrounding family secrets. Birthplaces looked at how women artists born outside of this country but now live here express feelings of displacement. Inventory examined how we record our own childhood and that of our children.
McDonough is currently a visiting lecturer at London Metropolitan University on the Fine Art BA Course and the Photography MA. Recently she has taught at Central St. Martins (U.of the Arts), London College of Fashion, (U.of the Arts); at Northampton University on both the BA & MA Photography and Fine Art courses. Whilst Course Leader of the BA Photographic & Digital Media Course, 1999 - 2005 at Cambridge School of Art (Anglia Ruskin University), she set up the Photographic Department and initiated the degree course currently running. She was able to employ many well -established and widely known practitioners to teach on the course. Whilst at Cambridge, she was external assessor for Norwich School of Art and Design, Huntingdonshire Regional College, Great Yarmouth College of Further Education and West Suffolk College.
She secured substantial funding from The Arts & Humanities Research Board, and every year, RAE funding from Anglia Polytechnic University, to research a series of projects. The main project was “Eccentric Chronicles”: a photographic study of family relationships, using an 8 x 10 plate camera.
In 1998 she completed an MA in Drawing at Wimbledon School of Art, where she was examining the connections between drawing and photography in relation to collecting and hoarding.
She has also worked as photo-editor for Smith International Design working on a range book projects for clients such as Chris Boot Publishing, Photoworks and numerous exhibition catalogues. She has been on the judging panel for the Shoot Experience in conjunction with the Tate Modern and continues to curate and install exhibitions for a variety of clients. She is currently working on a series of book projects and is working to consolidate and focus on the development of her own projects.
She is currently being commissioned to make portraits for books and magazines .