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Charlotte Cotton is a curator, writer and creative consultant who explores the artist-led directions of photographic culture and visual storytelling. She has held positions including curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum; head of programming at The Photographers’ Gallery in London; curator and head of the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and founding artistic director of the Tasweer Photo Festival, Qatar. Charlotte is the founder of photography discussion platforms, WORDS WITHOUT PICTURES (2008-09) and EITHERAND.ORG (2012-15) and is currently Chief Creative Success Officer at NARRATIVE.NEW.

Her book, THE PHOTOGRAPH AS CONTEMPORARY ART (4th edition, 2020), is published in fourteen languages and has been a key text in charting the rise of photography as an undisputed art form in the 21st century. Charlotte’s PHOTOGRAPHY IS MAGIC (2012-15) biennial and book were the part of the first wave of marking the rise of global artists defining the Post internet image environment. PUBLIC, PRIVATE, SECRET (2016) culturally addressed the complex intersections of our rights to be seen and heard while claiming the privilege of privacy. Her forthcoming book, LOVE PICTURES, is a collaboration with artist Jess T Dugan, structured around a week-long conversation about photography, responsibility, family and love. She has recently received the 2026 Photography Curatorship, Criticism or Research Award from the Royal Photographic Society in the UK.