Meghan Kirkwood

Meghan Kirkwood is an assistant professor of visual art and serves as area head of photography. She earned a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in Photography before completing her MFA in Studio Art at Tulane University and PhD at the University of Florida. Her photographic research looks at the ways in which landscape imagery can inform and advance public conversations around land use, infrastructure, and planning.

Kirkwood’s work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group shows at venues including Blue Sky Gallery (Portland, OR), Filter Space (Chicago, IL), Bangkok Art and Culture Center (Thailand), ArtSpace Durban (South Africa), Colorado Photographic Arts Center (Denver, CO) Plains Art Museum (Fargo, ND), Rosza Gallery (Houghton, MI), and the Humble Arts Foundation.

Her photographs are held in several private and public collections, including the RISD Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, University of Idaho, Minot State University, North Dakota Museum of Art, and the University of Florida Genetics Institute. Her work has been featured in publications such as Lenscratch, Don’t Take Pictures, Oxford American, New Landscape Photography, Landscape Stories, Don’t Smile, and Ours. She has also received full funding to participate in artist residencies through the National Parks Service, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Lakeside Lab (Iowa).

In tandem with her studio practice, Kirkwood researches in the fields of African art and the history of photography. Presently, her writing focuses on the uses of landscape imagery by contemporary South African photographers, but she also researches African monuments designed and built by North Koreans. Her writing on photography has been published in Lenscratch, Social Dynamics, Exposure, and Photography and Culture.