Mark Durden is a writer and artist. He studied Fine Art at Exeter College of Art and Design and at Glasgow School of Art, going on to study History and Theory of Art at University of Kent at Canterbury— attaining an MA by research for a thesis on Roland Barthes and a PhD on Photography and the Book. He has taught both Art History and Fine Art at Kent Institute of Art and Design, Canterbury and at Staffordshire University. He taught History of Photography at University of Derby where he became Reader in 2002 and Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) in Photography in 2003. He left Derby in 2007 to join Newport as Professor of Photography. He has published extensively on photography and contemporary art and since 1997 has worked as part of the artists’ group Common Culture.

20 doctorates to completion as Director of Studies, including Olivia M. da Silva, In The Net (2000); Jane Fletcher, The Way She Looks: Robert Thompson Crawshay’s Photographs of his Daughter, Rose Harriette(2002); Haris Kakarouhas, Suspended Time, (2003); Peter Day, Invisible Boundaries(2007); Nikos Panayotopoulos, Terra Cognita: The Western Hegemonic Representations of Greece Through the Case of Athens (2008); Yannis Kontos, Beyond Photojournalism, (2011); Geraint Davies, Dimensions, Perceptions: Resonances from Dürer’s MELENCOLIA I (2012); Dragana Jurisic, YU: The Lost Country (2013); Amak Mahmoudian: Double Identity (2015); Daniel Blaufuks: W.G.Sebald and Georges Perec: Photography, Film, Memory and the Holocaust (2017).