Andy Hughes studied at the Royal College of Art, London. He was the first Artist in Residence at Tate Gallery St. Ives. His photographic artworks focus on the littoral zone. For more than thirty years a preoccupation with the ‘thing-ness’ of plastic, watery worlds and coastal habitats has driven his work, which interfaces with scientific research, gamification, ruinology, philosophy, literature, art and film, including archival film.

His ground-breaking book 『Dominant Wave Theory』 presents the first complete photographic study of plastic and human waste washed ashore along the coasts of Europe and the USA. It contains expert commentary by world-leading experts. His work is included in 『Photography and Environmental Activism』(Routledge, 2022) which maps key moments in the history of environmentalist photography whilst also examining contemporary examples of artistic practice. In 2013, he was invited to join 〈Gyre: The Plastic Ocean〉, the world’s first project that explored the integration of science and art to document and interpret the issue of plastic pollution in the marine environment. A National Geographic film, exhibition and book were supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Smithsonian Institution, Rasmuson Foundation and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. He engages with radical conceptions of materialism and the implications this has for politics, ecology and the everyday way we think of others, the world, and ourselves. He has supported and worked with many NGO’s that are dedicated to marine conservation and ocean protection. While climate catastrophe, warming oceans and the pollution of the coastal ‘environment’ are dominated by didactic storytelling, Hughes’ practice radiates beyond this. Using video gaming, sculpture, photography, collage and film he explores notions of the aliveness of waste matter and its connectivity to people and place.