James Clifford Kent (b. 1983) is a London-based photographer who lectures on visual culture at Royal Holloway, University of London. His practice-led teaching and research spans documentary photography, photojournalism and the medical humanities. He explores ways of telling stories about people using portraiture and social documentary, and is one of the leading researchers working on Cuba and photography.
Over the course of the past two decades, James has travelled regularly to Cuba with his own photographic projects, covering historic events such as the funeral procession of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 2016. From photo-essays to investigative long reads, his award-winning work has featured in a wide range of publications, including The Guardian, The Independent and The Times. He has also published several journal articles on Cuba and visual culture and is the author of the book Aesthetics and the Revolutionary City: Real and Imagined Havana (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).
James has curated group shows and exhibited his own photographic work in the UK and Cuba. Selected curatorial projects include Memories of a Lost Shark (with Cuban writer Edmundo Desnoes, 2013-14), This is Cuba: Documentary Photography after Fidel at Royal Holloway (2019), and Raúl Cañibano: Chronicles of an Island (2019) and Raúl Cañibano: Human Landscapes (2024) at The Photographers’ Gallery, London. His Pregnant in a Pandemic (2021) project was awarded a prize by The Lancet in 2021, and his follow-up project Maternity – developed in collaboration with NHS London – featured in The Lancet in 2023. Work from his ongoing longform project “¡No hay más na’!” (there’s nothing left) documenting narratives of survival in crisis-hit Cuba was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2023.
He received his PhD from the University of London in 2012 and was appointed Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2016. Funding for his projects has come from Arts Council England and the Arts & Humanities Research Council. He has organised workshops and given public talks at institutions such as Tate Modern (Tate Exchange), The Photographers’ Gallery and the Fototeca de Cuba. He was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2022.