Tessa Bunney North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
For over 30 years, Tessa has photographed rural life, working closely with individuals and communities to investigate how the landscape is shaped by humans. From hill farmers near her home in N Yorkshire to Icelandic puffin hunters, from Romanian nomadic shepherds to Lincolnshire flower farmers her projects reveal the fascinating intricacies of the dependencies between people, work and the land.
FarmerFlorist was published by Another Place Press as part of their Field Notes series and in early 2020 her exhibition ‘Otherwise Unseen’, bringing together four series which explore various rural communities in Europe and South East Asia was shown at the Side Gallery in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Britain’s only documentary photography gallery.
Recent work includes ‘Made out of Orchards’ which was commissioned, published and exhibited by the Martin Parr Foundation in 2023, ‘Going to the Sand’, an ongoing personal project collaborating with Morecambe Bay fishermen which was recently published by Another Place Press and 'Farm / Mill / Bake' which was commissioned and exhibited by Ryedale Folk Museum in 2025.
She was the recipient of the TPA/RPS Environmental Bursary 2023 to work with fishermen from the Teesside and Yorkshire coast to tell their story following the devastating wash-up of crabs and lobsters on which their livelihoods depend.
She regularly gives talks about her practice to a wide range of community groups, galleries, schools and universities. She is currently photography lecturer at York St John University.
Projects and exhibitions
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Save our Sea24/10/2025 — 26/10/2025 SAVE OUR SEA: working with fishermen along the Teesside and Yorkshire coastline following the devastating wash-up of crabs and lobsters on which their livelihoods depend. In Sept 2021, a dredger was brought in by PD Ports to undertake 6% of its annual dredging quota at the mouth of the Tees Estuary and dispose of the dredged material in a... [Read more] |
The Lobster Lounge, Musicport Festival, Whitby | Details |
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Song of the Oyster Reef11/05/2025 ‘Song of the Oyster Reef’ was a collaborative commission between myself and the writer Stevie Ronnie where we responded creatively to scientific research exploring nature-based solutions to coastal erosion along the coastline of North Eastern England. Our response focussed on one of those potential solutions: efforts to re-introduce native... [Read more] |
Sandhaven Beach, South Shields | Details |
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Farm / Mill / Bake20/03/2025 — 30/11/2025 FARM / MILL / BAKE Across the country, a growing movement of farmers, millers and bakers has been reshaping breadmaking for the better, for both people and the planet. In the heart of the North York Moors, Hill Top Farm is the base of ‘Yorkshire Organic Millers’ and home of Nelly and Philip Trevelyan. Since 2005, the pair have... [Read more] |
Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole | Details |
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Made out of Orchards21/07/2022 — 25/09/2022 MADE OUT OF ORCHARDS In 2019, Martin Parr Foundation commissioned me to create ‘Made out of Orchards’, a new body of work exploring the cider industry today. I photographed from 2019 through to 2022 capturing the processes and traditions of cider making, including milling, building the ‘cheese’, pressing, fermenting and wassailing as... [Read more] |
Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol | Details |
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Going to the Sand09/04/2022 — ongoing “A landscape that is essentially all space, measured out in different elements — the broad expanses of land, sea and sky. And within those -scapes, occasional pockets of densely packed treasure for those who know how to find them. Estuarine views that are never twice the same; all aspects of them shifting not only across days but within... [Read more] |
Lancaster Maritime Museum, Lancaster and touring around Morecambe Bay | Details |
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The Flower Fields15/11/2019 — 05/01/2020 I have been working with artisan British flower growers for over 3 years and latterly became interested in the history of cut flower production especially in Lincolnshire, one of the UK’s major cut flower growing regions. This work is located in South Holland, a rural district in the South East of Lincolnshire where man drained, reclaimed and... [Read more] |
Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, Sunderland | Details |
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FarmerFlorist03/05/2019 — 29/06/2019 We are a nation of farmers, of gardeners, of flower lovers and our cut flower industry is worth 2.2 billion pounds a year. Flower farms were once a familiar feature of the British countryside and market gardeners grew flowers among their vegetables. In the 1800s, larger farms sprang up as transport links improved and daily trains carried... [Read more] |
Oriel Colwyn, Colwyn Bay | Details |