Carey Young

Carey Young is a London-based artist and academic affiliated with the Slade School of Fine Art at University College London since 2011. She holds a special responsibility for photography tuition within the Slade and teaches Fine Art studio practice across undergraduate, MA, and PhD programs. Prior to joining UCL, she served as Senior Lecturer in Photography at London College of Communication (2006-2011) and University of East London (2005-2006), and has also lectured at institutions including the Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths.

Young's artistic practice explores relationships between the body, language, the cinematic, and systems of power, with a particular focus on law and justice through questions of gender, architecture, performance, and the sublime. Since 2002, she has developed a significant body of work addressing and critiquing legal systems, with notable projects including Palais de Justice (2017), The Vision Machine (2020), and Appearance (2023). Her approach often begins with legal or corporate language, locations, and materials, transforming these through photography, video, text, or performance.

Young has held numerous research fellowships and residencies across artistic and legal contexts, including TORCH at University of Oxford (2023), Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020), Creative Arts Fellowship at Wolfson College (2018-2021), and ongoing affiliation with the School of Law at Birkbeck, University of London since 2013. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including Modern Art Oxford (2023), Dazibao (Montreal, 2023), Towner Gallery (Eastbourne, 2019), La Loge (Brussels, 2019), and Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Zurich, 2013).

Her artistic output reveals consistent engagement with gender, power dynamics, and legal systems, often using cinematic techniques to explore these themes. Recent works have increasingly focused on female representation within judicial systems, creating counter-narratives to the traditionally patriarchal culture of law. Her methodology combines documentary approaches with conceptual frameworks, resulting in what curator Toby Kamps describes as 'a unique amalgam of the conceptual, documentary, and imaginary.'

Among her recognitions, Young received the Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists in 2021. Her work is held in major public collections including Tate, Centre Pompidou, Dallas Museum of Art, and the Arts Council Collection. She is represented by Paula Cooper Gallery in New York.

Young's academic and artistic work intersect through her ongoing exploration of law, capitalism, and power structures, supporting students interested in these intersections at the Slade. Her practice demonstrates how artistic interventions can critically examine institutional frameworks while developing innovative visual languages for representing abstract systems of power.