Born in Christchurch, New Zealand Bridgit Anderson studied photography at the Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury. She moved to London in 1985, making her home by the River Thames in Rotherhithe, just south of Tower Bridge. Here she developed a lifelong interest in 19th century photographic processes and the ideas that have shaped and underpin the medium’s development.
Anderson says, ‘My love of photography began with a manual camera, film and the alchemy of the darkroom.’
The Thames riverside community and local antique markets provided rich source material and inspiration for her photography but it was after acquiring a collection of 2000 glass plate negatives from the 1880s (The Eason Collection) that she became particularly interested in death portraits, a common photographic convention of the Victorian era.
This practice of memorialisation was central to her 2005/6 series Caring for the Dead, in which she recorded the journey of the body from the time of death to that of burial or cremation. Psychology professor and writer Ken Strongman, speaking at the exhibition opening said, ‘Studying Bridgit’s images is like watching a Mike Leigh movie, but without any of the emotional anguish.’
Anderson taught photography at Chelsea, Camberwell and Croydon College of Arts, London before returning to New Zealand in 2004 to teach at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts. Exhibited and published nationally and internationally, her work is held in private & national collections, including the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
email: bridgit@cyanotypes.co.nz