Statement
2020-ongoing 'Decay Theory Repository' is a visual database of personal items that have been donated and loaned, culminating in an online museum of teeth and the mouth. Each item has been catalogued and temporarily accessioned, allowing public access to the database. The online museum and database outlives the physical objects, which are deaccessioned at the end of their loan period.
Caitlin E. Littlewood is a Melbourne-born visual artist working in artistic research, photography, installation, publications and moving image. She has a foundation education in fine art, having received Honours in Arts (Visual Culture) from Monash University in 2013 and a Bachelor of Arts (Photography) at RMIT University in 2017. More recently she completed a Master of Fine Arts in Photography at HDK-Valand, Gothenburg, Sweden (2020), for which she received the Theodor and Hanne Mannheimers Scholarship for her work, ‘Decay Theory’.
As a practitioner, Littlewood’s imagery involves investigating archives and collections that form part of our collective past. Her academic research explores who has agency over colonial photographic collections with a focus on knowledge production, institutional critique and archive theory. Her works are presented in exhibitions as both still photography and moving image, installation and within a variety of published formats such as photo books and artist’s books under the imprint of The Lytlewode Press (Stoke-on-Trent, Melbourne & Gothenburg).
Littlewood is based between Gothenburg and Melbourne. In 2021 she was awarded a one year working grant from Konstnärsnämnden/the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and is a finalist in the 2022 National Photography Prize in Australia at Murray Art Museum Albury.