Sophie Lee

Sophie Lee is a Lecturer in Photography at the School of Digital Arts (SODA), Manchester Metropolitan University, where she creates interdisciplinary work through photography, video, and creative writing. Her practice centers on participatory and collaborative methods to explore care narratives, gendered time, and familial relationships, with recent exhibitions at international venues including Arles, France, and Reykjavik, Iceland.

Lee's research investigates how memory, architecture, and identity intersect in everyday life, particularly through community-engaged projects. She employs fragmentary storytelling techniques to examine temporal experiences in domestic spaces, often collaborating with learning disabled artists and local communities to challenge conventional artistic methodologies and amplify marginalized voices.

Her recent output (2023-2025) reveals a trajectory toward institutional collaborations, including British Academy-funded research exhibitions and multi-artist projects like LULL that bridge digital and physical spaces. Key thematic threads include spatial memory, collective identity formation, and the materiality of care practices across diverse geographic contexts from North West England to Wales.

Lee has secured external funding through Arts Council England for the OutsiderXchanges project and participates in knowledge exchange initiatives like the Creative Writing Public Workshop Series. As a lecturer, she mentors students in collaborative art practices while developing frameworks for ethical co-creation with vulnerable communities.

Based at Lowry Research facilities, Lee collaborates extensively with Castlefield Gallery, CVAN, and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts. Her current projects involve cross-institutional partnerships with University of Lancaster and Cardiff University, focusing on architectural memory and regional research dissemination through innovative exhibition formats.