Dr Vicki Thornton is Acting Co-Programme Director for the Photography programme and Course Leader and Senior Lecturer on the BA (Hons) Photojournalism and Documentary Photography course at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London (UAL). As a visual artist and filmmaker, her work combines documentary and fiction filmmaking approaches to examine relationships between site, collective memory, performance, and identity.
Vicki was awarded a PhD in Film Practice from Queen Mary University of London in July 2025. She also holds an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art, London (2011). Her doctoral research, supported by Creative Europe, the British Council in Ukraine, House of Europe and the Ukrainian Cultural Fund, examined the decolonisation of Ukraine’s politics of memory between 2014 and 2022 via an analysis of documentary film and artists’ moving image projects produced during and after the Maidan Revolution.
Vicki worked extensively in Ukraine between 2016-2022: directing and producing documentary film projects in Donbas, Kyiv and Lviv (2018-2021); co-directing the interdisciplinary musical film performance, Antratsyt: Perseverance Day at the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre, Kyiv (2021); exhibiting at Yermilov Centre, Kharkiv (2018); developing creative work as artist-in-residence at IZOLYATSIA Platform for Cultural Initiatives, Kyiv as part of the British Council and the Liverpool Biennial’s SWAP UK/Ukraine artists’ residency scheme (2017-2018); and participating in the British Council Ukraine, Sheffield Doc/Fest and Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival’s DocWorks UA: UK documentary development programme (2016-2017).
Vicki’s work has been shown in gallery exhibitions, film festivals and documentary film markets worldwide, including Go Short International Short Film Festival, Netherlands; PhotoIreland Festival, Dublin; When East Meets West, Trieste; Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Czech Republic; Sheffield Doc/Fest, UK and Docudays UA, Kyiv, Ukraine; PÖFF Black Nights, Tallinn, Estonia; DOKLeipzig, Germany; Cambridge Film Festival, UK; Alchemy Moving Image Festival, Scotland; Clermont-Ferrand, France; and Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York.
View the BA (Hons) Photojournalism and Documentary Photography course page.