Andreea Elle Vas

Photographer, writer, researcher, educator.

I am available for photography and writing commissions. I run a number of workshops and holidays. Use the form below to get in touch.

I was born and raised in Romania behind the iron curtain. My childhood and coming-of-age in times of dictatorship have become sources of creative inspiration in recent years.  

My parents tell me that when I was very little and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d say ‘a foreign artist’. I’d forgotten all about that when I moved to the UK in my late 20s. Now that artist keeps being drawn back to the motherland to reconnect.

My life seems to have always been in a state of flux. In the early 90s I got my Philosophy degree from the University of Bucharest but decided a career in academia was not for me at the time. My native country was changing and I put myself at the core of that transformation for a while, in government, NGO and international organisation roles.

When I made England my new home as a ‘highly skilled migrant’, I busied myself with embracing my evolving identity, traveling the world and working hard to climb the career ladder and earn my keep. Not much later than hitting 40, I left the corporate world to dedicate myself to photography and writing.

I came back to the academic world during the pandemic by getting my MA in Photography from Falmouth University. Working on autobiographical themes, that was the catalyst for later embarking onto a PhD in photography and memory studies, which I am currently working towards at the University of the Arts London. I am also writing my memoir about growing up in Romania of the 1980s: Tales from the Silk Factory.