Bio



Mario is a Japanese/British photographic artist, curator and educator based in Manchester (b. 1980, Kamakura, Japan). He graduated from Manchester School of Art in 2007 and continues to work on his own projects and commissions from his adopted home city.

On a planet increasingly shaped by human activity, he is driven by a fascination in our paradoxical relationship to non-human nature and how our path has seemingly deviated from the natural order. This has formed the basis of an ongoing enquiry through long-term projects.

His work has been exhibited and published in Britain and internationally. He is currently developing long-term projects in both the UK and Italy that explore place in the context of industrial legacy, nature and community and is currently an artist in residence in Wigan Borough with Open Eye Gallery.

As a freelance curator, Mario has led and curated on a number of contemporary photography exhibitions in the North, working with and alongside organisations such as Open Eye Gallery, Impressions Gallery, HOME Manchester and Castlefield Gallery.





Email: mariopopham@gmail.com
Telephone: +44(0)7940 913666
Instagram: @mariopopham





Selected Exhibitions:

Strange Eden, Climate Lab, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, 2024 

To the Valley Below, IPE 165,  Royal Photographic Society, Bristol, 2024

Strange Eden – Open Call Country-Landscape-Environment, Centre for British Photography, London, 2023 

Seaside Terminus, West Coast Photo, Signal, Barraow-in-Furness, 2021 

Of Flesh and Stone, Granada Galleries, HOME, Manchester, 2018 

Shaped by Stone, ‘On the Stony Path’, GroundWork Gallery,
Norfolk, 2017 

Shaped by Stone, ’Northern Light’ group exhibition, SIA Gallery,
Sheffield, 2016 




Selected Curatorial:


See Change, Look Photo Biennial 2022: Wigan and Leigh, 2023

She Appeared to Vanish,  Waterside & HOME, Manchester, UK, 2021

First Light, Castlefield New Art Spaces, Warrington, UK, 2021

Sweet DebrisWaterside, Manchester, UK,  2018







Commissioned:

Curator/Producer, Open Eye Hub, Wigan and Leigh, 2022-2024
Lead Artist In Residence, Open Eye Gallery, 2023-2025
Return to Nature, Open Eye Gallery, 2021


Awarded:

Belfast Photo Festival – Highly Commended, 2024
Royal Photographic Society, IPE 165 – Selected Series, 2023
FORMAT Festival – GRAIN/FORMAT Portfolio Prize, 2023
Magenta Flash Forward Award – Winner, 2013
Nikon Discovery Awards – Shortlisted, 2007
Observer Hodge Award – Highly Commended, 2006