Writer, artist and educator, Claire Collison’s work spans photography, poetry, performance, installation and participatory events.
Claire’s practice encompasses visual art, writing, educational facilitation and engagement.
Writer, visual artist and educator, Claire Collison specialises in brokering engagement for museums and art galleries, and produces resources for the Government Art Collection. Claire was the first MaxLiteracy Writer at Kettle’s Yard, and is the MaxLiteracy Awards programme coordinator for NAWE (National Association for Writers in Education). She runs Write From Art, and teaches Creative Writing at City Lit.
Claire’s first novel, Treading Water was a finalist in the Dundee Book Prize. Her prizewinning poetry is widely published. In 2018 she was awarded the inaugural Women Poets’ Prize (Rebecca Swift Foundation). She is a founder member of Poets for the Planet.
Claire Collison picture credit: Patrick Beirne
Writer
Now You See Me: A collaboration with Liz Orton
Artist
Rivers of the World poster (Shona Watt & Claire Collison)
in situ on South Bank as part of Thames Festival
Learning
Writer
Claire Collison is one of three winners of the inaugural Women Poets' Prize.
She was placed second in the Winchester Poetry Prize 2020, the inaugural Resurgence Prize (now Gingko) and the Hippocrates Prize. Her first novel was a finalist in the Dundee Book Prize.
Her debut pamphlet, Placebo, is published with Blueprint (blueprintpoetry@gmail.com)
Claire has worked as a creative copywriter and was Arts Editor for Disability Arts Magazine (DAM).
Her short stories, non-fiction and poetry is widely published in anthologies, online, and in magazines.
Claire teaches creative writing in a wide range of settings (see ‘Learning’). She devised Writing the City in 2005, and has been running this and other walking and writing workshops ever since.
Claire combines visual art and writing practices. She was the first Max Literacy resident at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge.
Publishing
Poetry
Butcher’s Dog (#4, 8, 11, 14)
Templar Anthology, 2016
Southbank Poetry , 2016
Resurgence Prize Anthology 2016
Flambard Prize Anthology, 2016
Hippocrates Prize Anthology, 2017
Best of British anthology (Paper Swan), 2017
Elbow Room, 2018
Poems for the NHS (Onslaught Press) 2018
Second Place Rosette: Poems about Britain, (Emma Press) 2018
In Transit (Emma Press) 2019
Coast to Coast to Coast 2019
PostGhostPress 2019
The Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry (Valley Press) 2019
Finished Creatures (#1,3,4)
The Rialto (#93, 94)
The Creel (Guillemot Press) 2019
Uncommon (Clapham Original Poets) 2019
Beyond Imitation (Corrupted Poetry) 2019
Temporary Spaces (Pamenar) 2020
We’ve Done Nothing Wrong, We’ve Nothing to Hide (Verve) 2020
Field Notes on Survival (Bad Betty) 2020
Magma #78 (Collaborations) 2020
Places of Poetry: Mapping the Nation in Verse, 2020
Winchester Poetry Prize Anthology, 2020
Debut Pamphlet Placebo 2022, Blueprint Press
Online:
The Island Review
The Compass
Yorkshire Mix
New Boots and Pantisocracies
Bare Fiction
Cease, Cows
Loss Lit
Poetry Awards
Winchester Poetry (second prize) 2020
Verve Poetry Festival (commended) 2020
Primers: Volume Five (shortlisted) 2019
The Rialto Pamphlet Prize (shortlisted) 2019
Women Poets’ Prize (winner) 2019
The Bridport Prize (shortlisted) 2018
Troubadour International Poetry Prize (longlisted) 2018
Outspoken Prize (page poetry) (shortlisted) 2019
Magma Editors’ Prize (commended), 2018
Poetry Business (runner up), 2017
Wordsworth Single Poem prize (finalist) 2017
Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine (second) 2017
Flambard Prize - Shortlisted (2016)
Poetry School/Soda Pictures competition (2016)
Resurgence Prize - Second Prize (2015)
Shortlisted/Commended:
Bridport Prize (2010, 2012, 2013)
Arvon, Yorkshire Mix, Writing East Midlands, Flamingo Feather, South Bank Poetry.
National Poetry Competition (longlisted) 2014
Commissions
Several Storeys: Commission to write and facilitate Tales from the Aylesbury Estate, 2017
Refugee Tales - Commission for Aldeburgh Festival, 2017
Kettle’s Yard - Commission to facilitate a poem with Grove School, performed at Gallery reopening, 2019
Prose
2005 - Treading Water (novel) Dundee Book Prize Finalist
2002 - Bridport Prize Anthology (short story)
Also published in magazines and online, incl. Woman’s Own, Virago/Marie Claire, Lapidus, MAKE, Women's Art, Narrative Magazine, National Association of Writers in Education, British Journal of Photography (BJP) and Engage.
Catalogues
1995 - What Can A Woman Do With A Camera? (chapter)
1990 - Silent Health (chapter)
1994 - Viewfindings (chapter)
Writing Gallery
‘Collison has written an important book of poems. The way she writes about the body, fear, illness, and how she navigates through to recovery, is both fresh and inventive. In her hands, the difficult subjects in Placebo turn to sharp, precise and humane poems.’ MONA ARSHI
Featured
Artist
Now You See Me: a collaboration with Liz Orton
Artist’s CV
Recent:
Artist in Residence, the Women's Art Library (WAL) - 2016 - 2017 Researching the archive and dialoguing with artists represented there; making new work, including:
An Intimate Tour of Breasts, London & Birmingham -
Tour guide for a walk taking in high street and high art, tea rooms and fitting rooms, exploring the mythologies and commodification of breasts throughout history to the present day. (Walking Women Festival, Somerset House, July 2016; Still Walking festival, Birmingham Sept 2017; Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery commissions, April ’18 & March ‘19; Peterborough ‘19; Liverpool ‘19)
Truth is Beauty - Single-breasted life modelling monologue. (Feminist Library; WAL; Loughborough University, 2018; Ministry of Justice, March 2019; Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery as part of Women. Power. Protest. 2019.)
Time & Space residencies Metal, Southend-on-Sea 2018; Metals Peterborough & Liverpool, 2019
Liverpool City - fly poster campaign 2020
Daylighting - Wellcome Collection, Bloomsbury Festival, Oct 2018
Selected Exhibitions
One-person:
All of Me - Albany Empire, 1987
One Girl’s Adventure - Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 1992
Metro Derby, 1993
La P’cera, Almeria, Spain, 1997
Watch This Space: Goldsmiths College, 2018
Commissions:
Camerawork, London: Imaging the Future; Women and Science Fiction (1988); Silent Health (1990, touring UK/Ireland 1991-93)
Walsall Museum and Art Gallery: Confrontations, 1992
Ikon Birmingham: A Search for Self (touring 1992)
The Billboard Project, Birmingham, 1993
Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery: Our Bodies Ourselves (touring UK 1995)
Liverpool Biennial: Sweet Violence. Workhaus, 1999
Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool: Works of Artifice: Makeup Uncovered, 2000
Selected group shows:
Me Myself I, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford 1988
Art Beyond Barriers, Frauen Museum, Bonn, 1989
The Bottom Drawer, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, (touring UK 1992)
Viewfindings: Women Photographers, Landscape and Environment, Newlyn Orion Gallery, Penzance (touring UK 1995)
Pharmacopoeia, British Museum, 2003 (permanent collection)
Visual Poetry, Poetry Café, London 2020
Work as Artist
Featured
“Days before the mastectomy, you return to the Heath
to swim again, while you can… “