Laila Svensgaard was born in 1974 in Tim, Denmark and studied painting at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London between 1995 to 1998 and an MFA in Critical Studies at Malmo Art Academy, Sweden between 2013 to 2015. She lived in London, UK from 1998 to 2010 and currently lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Svensgaard’s practice extends across photography, drawing , printmaking, sound, installations and independent artists books publishing.

Her works are on a fundamental level investigating registration in the photographic process, yet her artistic experiments are often rooted in the irrational aspects of the conditions for light, movements and materials. A working method more similar to a painter’s request, rather than the indexical truth ridden properties connected to the photograph as documentation.

In recent years Svensgaard has mainly been focusing on creating ‘cameraless’ photographs, which materialize through a curious medium of experimentation. The images are created through the use of a simple light source exposure and light sensitive photographic paper that preserves and traces the imprint as a negative image. Often her approaches takes a starting point peculiar small experiments, such as developing ‘Pocket Photos’ by asking people to carry light sensitive paper in their pocket, creating a small active camera inside the trousers, that records light, movements and the pocket fabric's patterns, resulting in an abstract composition. Or by registering the movement of the moon, by installing a self-made pinhole camera on a rooftop to capture beautiful drawings of light, made by cosmic movements.
Through a philosophical investigation of photographic materiality, Svensgaard creates a small photographic universe, conditioned by phenomenological questions. In Svensgaard's artistic work the photographic image is not necessarily statements about the world, but represents itself as a small piece of our world's reality. Her photographic works draw us into a poetic universe of dust, cracks, light, shadows and darkness to explore aesthetic meditative dimensions of the photographic process.