Academic staff

I am Course Director BA (Hons) Photography at LSBU and since 2017 Somerset House Studios Resident Artist. Following an MA in Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) Melbourne, I lectured in Critical and Theoretical Studies (2005-08) and the Centre for Ideas (2003-08) at the VCA. My work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, including the survey exhibition ‘Crowd Theory: Simon Terrill’, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, and 'The Brutalist Playground', a collaboration with Assemble Studios, commissioned by RIBA and touring internationally.

I am an Australian artist based in London. I work with photography, sculpture, installation, performance and video. Previous works have investigated relations between architectural spaces and their received narratives, public and private identities, and the figure of the crowd as a tool to examine architecture, identity, community and a performance of self. My Crowd Theory project involves large-scale stage-managed public events resulting in exhibitions at the sites of their creation along with collaborations with museums and public galleries to extend these images and stories outwards.

In 2008 I was awarded the Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, funding a year at the Slade School of Art. I have been commissioned by Acme Studios, National Trust Ernő Goldfinger Museum and Great Ormond St Hospital amongst others, along with grants from Australia Council for the Arts (2002, 2009, 2018) and Arts Council England (2010, 2016, 2020). My work is held in permanent collections including National Gallery of Australia, Samstag Museum of Art, State Library of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Monash Gallery of Art, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, La Trobe University Museum of Art, Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Recent exhibitions include the survey show ‘Crowd Theory: Simon Terrill’, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne; ‘Like Fire Walk with Me’ Sutton Gallery, ‘Crowd Theory: South of the River’ National Portrait Gallery, London; ‘Parallel (of Life and) Architecture’, University of Bath and ‘The Brutalist Playground’, a collaboration with Assemble Studios, commissioned by RIBA and touring internationally. I am currently working on a new research platform titled 'Crowds and...' through the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at LSBU.

Courses taught

Photography and Imaging - BA (Hons)

Prizes, awards, and accolades

The Anna & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship (Sep 2008)

Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia

KPMG Tutorship Prize for Teaching (Jan 2005)

Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne

National Gallery of Victoria Trustees Award (Nov 1997)

National Gallery of Victoria

Reach and Impact

Big cities, tiny people: the vast community portraits of Crowd Theory – in pictures (Jan 2019)

Simon Terrill's Playground (Aug 2015)

Britain's brutalist playgrounds (Jun 2015)