Small gestures, slow looking and creating fictive space

Professor Sarah Jones is Senior Tutor in Photography MA at the RCA. Her works have been exhibited internationally in both museums and galleries and are included in major public and private collections. She is represented by Maureen Paley, London, and Anton Kern Gallery, New York.

Recently Sarah was commissioned to photograph the Autumn/Winter 2024-25 and Spring/Summer 2025 campaigns for Dior. We discussed the concept and process behind these projects, how they relate to her studio practice and some key elements of her work, including scale, lighting and choreography.

Dior AW 24-25

How did the collaboration with Dior come about?

The invite came to me via Maureen Paley, the London gallery I work closely with, along with Anton Kern Gallery, New York. Dior had been looking at my early works of three young women, from the series Francis Place/Mulberry Lodge, as well as looking at the themes in my more recent exhibitions – Hall of Mirrors at Maureen Paley in 2021, and Gazing Ball at Anton Kern Gallery in 2023.

Rachele Regini, cultural advisor at Dior, had introduced my work. I had the chance to meet in person with Margot Populaire, the creative director on the campaign, and I felt I could really work with her and senior art director Devon Hind. Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director at Dior, had commissioned other women artists for recent campaigns – Tina Barney, Collier Schorr, Brigitte Niedermair. I very rarely shoot for fashion, but this invite interested me.

Dior AW 24-25

I was given pretty much open licence on the location and concept. I wanted somewhere that had a lived-in past as a setting for the models – an authentic place with enough space to set up the shoot and to move from room to room. We chose an abandoned chateau just outside Paris and worked with an incredible set designer, Alexander Bock on dressing the near-empty rooms, and a great stylist Elin Svahn on the shoot.

It was all quite intense from pre-production to shoot to post-production, and a way bigger team than I’d worked with on earlier editorial shoots. Dior were great to work with, I had a lot of support from them and from my photographer’s assistant team led by Louise Oates. I enjoyed the experience and learnt a lot – always up for that! I’ve recently finished the Dior Spring/Summer 2025 campaign, with the same team. A new experience again, working in studios this time.

Dior AW 24-25

Could you share a bit more about that?

This shoot was in studios in Paris – rather than on location. I was interested in what this shift might bring to this commission. We brought the outside in. One set recreated an area you might find in an urban park. Another, an architectural set, referenced pools, stone and water features often seen in these places. Both sets were influenced by Parisian gardens and loosely refer to a painting by the surrealist Marc Chagall, where both day and night exist impossibly at the same time in a park scene, as if in a dream. The distinct blue of the sky in the sets; the backlit backdrop, was also key.

Dior SS 25

This studio setting suggests a dreamlike place which the models move through. I worked with movement director Manon Bouquet on this campaign, which was new for me, and so interesting to further develop my approach.

Dior had been looking at a body of work I made a while ago in France. I was an artist in residence with Le Consortium, Dijon. This was a commission to make work in and around the nearby villages with the residents over several weeks. There’s reflection, water, edges of parks and, through lighting, dusk blue skies across these works.

Dior SS 25

This is not your first fashion or editorial shoot. How do you approach these commissions – do you see them as separate from your practice?

The last fashion commissions I did were some years ago for Vogue USA, Vogue Homme, and New York Magazine. These invites all came through the galleries I’m represented by. The concept of these commissions have to be of interest to me, and of course, the people I photograph and work with. Locations are important. I always have a huge input into this. I also shoot on a large format film camera. I approach these commissions as I would any new work, researching and building references. Of course it’s for a different context, and differently, very collaborative too.

I do enjoy the world of these shoots. The often huge teams all coming together to make something work, and having access to budgets, locations and sets is great. It’s another challenge for me, another way of working. Also, the postproduction is key. This stage is distinct, and sometimes quite intense in a different way from the shoot. I’ve had the opportunity to work with a great printer on both the Dior campaigns (Chris Cooke at Rapid Eye), and with some great photo retouchers. Working in collaboration, developing new skills, and building on existing ones, informs other works I may do.

Dior SS 25

Performance, staging and set are all elements of your work for Dior and your studio practice. Could you share where your interest in this comes from?

Fashion is in many ways performative, and the staging of it, its context in the photograph too. I’m interested in this being in some ways evident in the work I make for these commissions. For the Dior campaigns the locations I chose to work in, and the staging of the models within those settings, are part of this.

I studied contemporary dance and fine art for my BA. Fine art at MA. I was very interested in choreography. This continues to inform my approach to photography. I’m interested in small gestures, nuances – slow looking. Early on I worked with young actors in the studio. Later, in the Francis Place / Mulberry Lodge series, I worked with three young women across several years; they’re pictured in domestic settings, moving through adolescence to young womanhood.

The Sitting Room (Francis Place) III 1997, 1999, 150 x 150cm

For some years now I’ve been using the cinematography technique of day for night. Photographing in urban parks I transport the studio outside, working with large studio lights. I expose the film only for the brief flood of this artificial light, as it hits the subject. For example, my ‘Rose Gardens’ works show both kempt and unkempt plants in these displays. In the print they appear set into an inky dark space, a photographic night. The distant background of the day lit park disappears. The setting becomes a fictive night, a fictive space. I’m interested in this peculiarly photographic space, in the temporality and the world of the photograph. My photographic world has a palette that’s shared across works made in both the studio and on location. Subjects across both settings – objects in the studio, cultivated plants in parks – both in colour and black and white – are pictured as though seen through the same ‘lens’.

The Rose Gardens (display: II) (I) & (III), 2007, both 152 x 122cm

In your gallery work you often work with large format and produce large prints of your photographs. How is size and scale important to your work?

I make high-res digital scans of the 5 x 4-inch film negatives I want to work with, to then produce exhibition scale C-type prints. I often use a digital camera before going to film, to further work ideas out and for framing, as I did with the Dior campaigns. So, a hybrid way of working.

All my exhibition prints are ‘to life’ scale. They attempt to describe a ‘being in front of’ my subject, and then a ‘being in front of’ the subject for the viewer in the gallery. The works relate to each other, firstly in scale and palette. This ‘worldbuilding’ has been an important ongoing part of my practice for me. As is the idea of replicating something through photography, of measuring, of looking closely. For all these reasons, depending on the scale of the subject, some prints are 152 x 122cm, some 60 x 48cm.

Mimosa (Actor) (I) & (II), 2021, both 152 x 122cm

What most excites you about teaching at the RCA?

I’ve worked at RCA for many years now. It’s enjoyable to meet new students, to work with them across their MA. Their practices, and the experiences they bring to their work and research, are so varied. The Photography MA programme team, my colleagues, are great to work with and be around. We’re all practising artists, and writers, researchers.

How is photography taught at the RCA?

Photography is taught in the context of fine art. Tutors teach from their own research and practice, and in the context of current debates around contemporary art – also the history of photography, and new technologies such as AI. Each Tutor runs their own practice group, which the students choose to join at the start of the year. We invite guests to run workshops, and our great team of technicians support our students with making their work across the MA. Students learn new skills they may need for their practice.

Each Tutor has their personal tutees, who stay with them across the year. Group crits encourage critical reflection and thinking – towards ‘making work public’, one platform being the graduate show. Visiting speakers, artists and writers are of course important for this discourse too. Students develop their work across photography, performance, writing, film, sound – as they decide is right for them. We have a very fluid and porous idea of photography!

L: Screen (Orchid) (I), 2023, 60 x 48cm, R: Screen (after Beardsley) (I), 2023, 60 x 48cm

What might someone gain from the Photography MA programme?

The RCA is unique in that it’s a postgraduate college – so all our students are Master’s students. Students in the School of Arts & Humanities are a community studying across mediums – photography, performance, painting, sculpture, print etc. They are based in a number of programmes but often come together, for example, in the AcrossRCA groups.

Our students in Photography come from a variety of backgrounds, which creates a wide and dynamic range of approaches and influences – always good for discussions and crits – and peer to peer exchanges around work. The opportunity to spend an intense year studying and developing as an artist in this environment, on the MA, is valuable, and the peer relationships made often continue after graduation. We have some incredible alumni who are very active in the arts and who often continue to support each other.

The Dining Room (Mulberry Lodge) (I), 1997, 150 x 150cm

Credits:

All works © Sarah Jones courtesy of Maureen Paley, London, and, Anton Kern Gallery, New York.

All gallery works: C-type print mounted on aluminium, framed. 

Find out more about Sarah's artworks on her artist pages of the Maureen Paley website and the Anton Kern Gallery website.

Dior AW 24-25 campaign images

With thanks to: Maria Grazia Chiuri & Olivier Bialobos
Dior Cultural & Collection Adviser: @racheleregini
Dior Advertising image & Graphic Studio director: @ldespouys
And the team; Laurence Horter, Catherine Martel Suarez, Léna Bonnard, Clara Hampe
Creative Director: @margotpopulaire
Sr Art Director: @devonhind
Set Design: @alexanderbockstudio
On-set AD: @cecilelacoste.studio
Stylist: @elinsvahn_
Hair: @olivierschawalder
Make-up: @peterphilipsmakeup
Set: @alexanderbockstudio
Digi: @digitartparis @stefano_p_o_l_i
Print: @rapideye.darkroom
Production: @northsix
1st Photography Assistant: @louiseoates

Dior SS 25 campaign images

With thanks to: Maria Grazia Chiuri & Olivier Bialobos
Dior Cultural & Collection Adviser: @racheleregini
Dior Advertising image & Graphic Studio director: @ldespouys
And the team; Laurence Horter, Catherine Martel Suarez, Léna Bonnard, Clara Hampe
Creative Director: @margotpopulaire
Sr Art Director: @devonhind
Set Design: @alexanderbockstudio
On-set AD: @cecilelacoste.studio
Stylist: @elinsvahn_
Hair: @olivierschawalder
Make-up: @peterphilipsmakeup
Set: @alexanderbockstudio
Digi: @digitartparis @stefano_p_o_l_i
Print: @rapideye.darkroom
@touchdigital
Production: @northsix
1st Photography Assistant: @louiseoates

The response to the first question is an edited extract from an interview with Adam Murray, author of The Domestic Stage: Fashion Photography and Domestic Space, published spring 2025 Thames and Hudson.