I did an undergraduate in Fine Art at Leeds and graduated in 2007. I came from a fine art background but found photography was the thing that I was best at and was the best way to express what I wanted. I did lots of painting and drawing, but it gradually became more photographic.

After leaving Leeds in 2007, I moved to California and spent the next three years travelling and working between different countries. My partner and Iived in London and worked for Tate Modern, then went to Vancouver, where I worked for a music festival, a library and an art gallery, and then moved back to the US. All the time, I was building up contacts and working in various industries, seeing where I’d fit in, and what I liked.

I came back to England in the middle of the recession but managed to get intern work at the Whitechapel Gallery, in the community department, and eventually ended up working in the education department at the October Gallery. It was great to be able to finally combine all my work experience, but I felt that all the way through my travelling period, I needed to focus and move on with my own work. The environment you have at the College is one of motivation. It felt like I’d got to a point where I knew what I needed to know about the world and looking after myself, but wanted to go deeper into photography and dedicate my time to this.

What I lacked in my undergraduate degree was more specific technical knowledge and photography-specific debates, arguments and theory. I wanted to study somewhere that had rigorous theoretical grounding. Not many of the other courses did have this – other schools don’t offer the same Critical and Historical Studies (CHS) the RCA does.

When I started it was overwhelming. It takes up all of your brainpower. It’s hard work. I wouldn’t want to do something that I found easy, though. Having to work alongside is really difficult and you have to be clever at managing your time properly. In the first year you do a Fine Art version of CHS. In Photography, specifically, we have artist talks and visiting lecturers. We also have tutorials and group crits and anything else you organise yourself, including group shows and exhibitions. It’s as much about the people around you as it is about the facilities.

I’ve got things that I care about and a theoretical practice but coming to the RCA has meant it’s been pushed and stretched and opened up. For example, my interest in music is really important but I never thought about that being part of my art practice. That’s incredible to me because it’s everything that I like in one place. I’m making films. I also joined a shape note choir, which is like an early American folk choir – music originally from England and early America – and how it turned into this whole new kind of music, really beautiful and epic. I’m trying to develop a project that looks at history and the land that people live in being connected through music, songs and words. Before that, my work was all about history and landscapes.

I’ve had quite a few jobs in supporting myself. You have to squirrel it away and eat lentils! I’m lucky because my job at the gallery I can do on a day that nothing’s programmed at the College. The other job I do regularly is youth worker, working evenings a few nights a week. That means that most of the week I have off but I earn enough to pay the bills and fees. I’ve been really lucky to get a bursary and win a couple of prizes while I’ve been here. There are loads of such opportunities to win money – really good commissions, prizes and awards. RCA is really set up for that. I got one called the Tim Sawyer Prize and another, the Villiers David Travel Award. Because of this money, I’m able to travel and do research on shape note music for a whole month.

I want to make a book out of the work I’ve been doing and keep applying for residencies and commissions, and if I can save up enough, I’ll maybe look at doing a PhD. I feel very excited by it and am still enthusiastic about it all.

I graduated from the College with a Masters in Photography in 2008. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Photography and felt my practice was supported but also pushed to its limits. I was really pleased with the work I came out of the College with. I had been encouraged to consider research while I was writing my Masters dissertation, so I planned to think about it for a few years and then write a proposal.

As I already knew the standard of the teaching staff and facilities was high, I thought it would be an ideal place to apply. I applied for other research institutions but there were aspects of the courses that I felt were not as good as RCA. They felt less rigorous and I wanted to produce the highest quality work I am capable of, so I decided it had to be the RCA.

As a Masters student, I had some knowledge of the research department and had spoken to research students. It took time to work out how my practical work will inform my research, but group seminars and discussions with my supervisor have let me test out ideas and discuss issues I am experiencing, and hopefully start to overcome them.

My research involves investigating the relationship between sex and food in visual culture. It originated from my interest in the symbolism of Dutch seventeenth century paintings. In the paintings, food objects are given moral meanings related to sexual and consumer vices. I intend to use the sexualisation of food to make artwork that questions or reflects on contemporary consumer culture and our relationship to commodities. I’m exploring these ideas through theories of the fetish – from anthropology, psychoanalysis and Marxist commodity fetishism.

I am also interested in the substitutive nature of the symbolic objects in Dutch painting – they allow the painters to describe gender and sexuality without depicting gendered bodies. As my previous artwork aimed to emphasise the objectification and idealisation of the female body in photography, I felt that it was important for me to develop a visual language of gender and consumerism that didn’t rely on traditional representations of bodies. By casting and moulding objects, I can change their characteristics and ‘value’, hopefully giving them qualities interpreted as sexual or consumerist codes.

I meet with my supervisor regularly for lengthy discussions about my progress, and we discuss potential avenues for enquiry, and any pitfalls I might encounter. I also attend the Fine Art Research programme. During these sessions, students present work or ideas that are discussed by the group of students and staff. It is invaluable to engage in discussions with a wide variety of people, and helps to see problems from differing perspectives.

I make use of the wide variety or resources available to me. I regularly process and scan negatives and borrow equipment. As I hope to branch out into 3D techniques, I also intend to work in other departments of the College over the coming year. Among the most significant developments in my work are a brushing up of my large format photography skills, and beginning to work with materials such as alginate and latex.

Because I’m part-time, I don’t meet with my peers regularly throughout the week but we communicate via email. I also remain in touch with students I met during the research methods course from different departments. We try to meet periodically to discuss our progress and share ideas.

I chose to study part-time so I could continue to work as a lecturer. I am liable to pay the fees myself but have received grants from educational trusts to help me to cover the costs. I didn’t receive Arts and Humanities Research Council funding for the MPhil portion of my research but intend to reapply this year. I’m currently teaching degree students in Wales and exhibiting my artwork around the UK and internationally, but my plans for the future include continuing teaching and practicing as an artist. Make the most of the time you have at the Royal College – my Masters flew by and I’m sure my research will too.