Born and raised in the former steel town of Corby, Dean graduated with a degree in Fine Art from Falmouth School of Art in 1987. At the time, he photographed life in the town, the redevelopment of the steel works site and the industry’s toxic legacy.
In the early 90s, he lived for long periods of time with Karenni refugees along the Thailand/Burma frontier and documented their armed struggle against Burma’s dictatorship. From 1995, this evolved into a broader study of the nation’s struggle for democracy when he was able to travel across Burma following an easing of travel restrictions.
In 1998, Dean won the European Publishers’ Award for Photography for his work with the Karenni. This resulted in the publication of the the book, Karenni, the Forgotten War of a Nation Besieged, that was published simultaneously in five languages in five countries.
In the late-90s, he was invited to become an exhibitions consultant at Side Gallery, Newcastle, and then commissioned to produce Shifting Ground, about life in the former Durham Coalfield. This led to Dean becoming a curator of exhibitions at Side – a position he left in 2021.
Dean has worked extensively in Japan; in 1999 & 2000 he travelled to every prefecture and region of Japan photographing people and places. Following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, he revisited, over several journeys, northeast Tohoku to document the locations he’d photographed a decade earlier.
In the North East of England, he documented the lead up to the enactment of the Hunting Ban and, more widely, the relationship between people and animals in the north. More recently, he has been examining the legacy of Brexit through an exploration of life in Sunderland – the first area of the UK to vote to leave the EU.
Dean’s photographs have been published internationally and he has had solo exhibitions in England, Italy, Turkey, Bangladesh and Japan.