Dr Sean Cham
- Tutor (Research)
- Photography MA
Sean is an interdisciplinary artist and historian who works across photography, performance, and site-specific interventions to examine the construction of power and historical narratives.
Sean Cham is a Tutor (Research) in the School of Arts & Humanities. He holds a PhD in History of Art from Birkbeck, University of London in collaboration with London’s National Gallery (2025). Using speculative fiction and collaging as methodologies, central to his research and practice is an interrogation of the archive as material and institution.
Sean’s works were exhibited in Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou (2025), ROSL, London (2025), Saatchi Gallery, London (2025), Fabrica Gallery, Brighton (2024), DECK, Singapore (2020, 2015), B-Part, Berlin (2020), CICA Museum, Gimpo (2018). He was also a participating artist in the Guangzhou Image Triennial (2025), Addis Foto Fest (2018), and Landskrona Foto Festival (2018). His works have been commissioned by Singapore Art Museum (2025), Singapore Fringe Festival (2019), The Future of Our Pasts Festival (2019), and NUS Centre For the Arts (2019). Sean was also one of the curators for the 9th Singapore International Photography Festival.
Key details
School, Centre or Area
Gallery
More information
Research interests
Sean’s research engages with colonial histories in the long nineteenth century, and its legacies today. His work examines how imperial power is embedded in visual culture and institutional histories, contributing to the ways that historical narratives are transmitted, remembered and erased. His work involves archival research, provenance research, quantitative studies, collaging, writing, and situated practice.
Practice
Working across photography, performance, and site-specific interventions, Sean’s research-led practice takes on an embodied approach to engage with histories. Through acts of repetition, reenactments, reconstruction, his work tends to the silences, gaps, and distortions of the archive. His recent works have also incorporated emerging technologies as another way to disrupt the archive.
Sean has exhibited in the UK and internationally. He also has several works commissioned by cultural institutions in Singapore.
Research funding
International Placement Scheme Fellowship at Huntington Library, California, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), 2023
DECK Associate Creative Programme, Singapore, 2023-2024
Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Award, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), 2021-2025International Placement Scheme Fellowship at Huntington Library, California, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), 2023
DECK Associate Creative Programme, Singapore, 2023-2024
Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Award, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), 2021-2025
Awards
Gwynne-Vaughan Prize, Birkbeck, University of London, 2025
First Prize Winner, ROSL Photography Award, 2025
Top 10 Winner, LensCulture Critics’ Choice Award, 2025
Honorary Mention, Artists on Photography Fellowship, Münchner Stadtmuseum, 2025
Longlist, Aesthetica Art Prize, 2025
Finalist, Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards, 2024
Longlist, OD Photo Prize, 2024
Finalist, International Photography Exhibition 166, 2024
Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Award, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), 2021
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Selected Publications:
Cham, S. (2026). Holding Art Museums Accountable: Recovering Entangled Lives of Enslaved People in London’s National Gallery. In: M. Jones and S. Aylett-Streitberg, ed., Museums, Empire and Decolonial Praxis: A New Museum Paradigm?. London: Routledge. (forthcoming)
Cham, S. (2025). Inheriting Empire, Wealth, and Art: The Baring Family and London’s National Gallery in the Nineteenth Century. Cultural and Social History, 22(1), pp. 53–78. doi: 10.1080/14780038.2024.2426251.
Selected Group Exhibitions:
(2025) Ecology of Sensitivity: Guangzhou Image Triennial. Guangdong Museum of Art. Guangzhou, China.
(2025) International Photography Exhibition 166. Saatchi Gallery. London.
(2018) Addis Foto Fest. Ethiopia.
(2018) Landskrona Foto Festival. Sweden.
(2018) The Body: International Exhibition and Documentary. CICA Museum. South Korea.
Curation:
(2024) Archival Allergies: Personal Remedies for Colonial Archives. Singapore International Photography Festival.
Commissions:
(2025) Procession. Possession. Singapore Art Museum.
(2019) The Last Gap. NUS Centre For the Arts. Singapore.
(2019) First Storeys. The Future of Our Pasts Festival. Singapore.
(2019) This is Where. Singapore Fringe Festival.