Staff profile

I am an art historian, specialising in the intersections between art history and medical humanities. My role is split between the School of Modern Languages & Cultures, where I teach on the Visual Arts and Film programme, and the Institute for Medical Humanities, where I lead the Visual and Material Lab as part of the Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities (2023-2030). 

I completed my PhD in the History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London, and subsequently took up a Wellcome Trust ISSF fellowship, which allowed me to work on two book-length projects, a monograph AIDS & Representation (Bloomsbury, May 2023) and a collected volume on Anti-Portraiture (Bloomsbury, 2020), and to curate an exhibition exploring the historic art therapy collection The Adamson Collection. 

I joined Durham Institute for Medical Humanities in 2018 as an Associate Editor for The Polyphony, and was acting Editor in Chief from 2019-2020. From 2019-2021 I was PI for the Wellcome-funded project “Thinking Through Things”, which engaged with and expanded the visual and material turn in the medical humanities. From 2021-2023 I was a postdoctoral research associate in visual medical humanities – to our knowledge this was the first visual medical humanities appointment in the UK!

From 2021–23, I co-directed the series Confabulations: Art Practice, Art History, Critical Medical Humanities; this led to the field-defining edited volume, Art and the Critical Medical Humanities (Bloomsbury, 2026). to be published by Bloomsbury in their Critical Interventions in the Medical and Health Humanities series. I am now working on a new monographic project, provisionally entitled Critical Interlopers: artists as researchers and collaborators in healthcare and medicine.

 

• 2022: Steering Groups: I am a member of the Steering Group for the Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research (NNMHR)
  
• 2022: Peer Review: I have reviewed articles for BJPsych Bullentin (2021), Modern and Contemporary France (2021), Medical Humanities (2019), the Science Museum Group Journal (2020, 2018) and Health Journal (2019). I have reviewed book proposals for Routledge (2021), Liverpool University Press (2020) and Palgrave MacMillan (2020).

Authored book

• AIDS & Representation: Portraits and Self-Portraits during the AIDS crisis in America
  
  Johnstone, F. (2023). AIDS & Representation: Portraits and Self-Portraits during the AIDS crisis in America. Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

Book review

• Art History's Turn to Health
  
  Johnstone, F. (2022). Art History’s Turn to Health. Art History, 45(4), 905-912. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.12671
• Christian Bonah and Anja Laukötter, eds. Body, Capital and Screens: Visual Media and the Healthy Self in the 20th Century. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020).
  
  Johnstone, F. (2021). Christian Bonah and Anja Laukötter, eds. Body, Capital and Screens: Visual Media and the Healthy Self in the 20th Century. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020). European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health, 79(1), 209-212. https://doi.org/10.1163/26667711-78010004

Chapter in book

• Relics, Remains and Other Objects: Non-Mimetic Portraiture in the Age of AIDS
  
  Johnstone, F. (2020). Relics, Remains and Other Objects: Non-Mimetic Portraiture in the Age of AIDS. In F. Johnstone & K. Imber (Eds.), Anti-Portraiture: Challenging the Limits of the Portrait (pp. 195-215). Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
• The Explosive Side of Subjectivity: Mark Morrisroe's Plastic Photographic Practice
  
  Johnstone, F. (2012). The Explosive Side of Subjectivity: Mark Morrisroe’s Plastic Photographic Practice. In Changing Difference: Queer Politics and Changing Identities (pp. 125-137). Silvana Editoriale & Galleria Civica di Moderna.
• The Pin-Up and the Corpse
  
  Johnstone, F. (n.d.). The Pin-Up and the Corpse. In H. Williams (Ed.), Malady and Mortality [Contracted by publisher] (pp. 69-76). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Edited book

• Anti-Portraiture: Challenging the Limits of the Portrait
  
  Johnstone, F., & Imber, K. (Eds.). (in press). Anti-Portraiture: Challenging the Limits of the Portrait. Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
• Wearable Objects and Curative Things: Materialist Approaches to the Intersections of Fashion, Art, Health and Medicine
  
  Woolley, D., Johnstone, F., Sampson, E., & Chambers, P. (Eds.). (n.d.). Wearable Objects and Curative Things: Materialist Approaches to the Intersections of Fashion, Art, Health and Medicine [Contracted by publisher]. Palgrave Macmillan.

Journal Article

• What can art history offer medical humanities?
  
  Biernoff, S., & Johnstone, F. (2024). What can art history offer medical humanities? Medical Humanities, 50(3), 529-538. https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2023-012763
• Picture an epidemic: contemporary culture and HIV
  
  Johnstone, F. (2024). Picture an epidemic: contemporary culture and HIV. The Lancet, 403(10429), 802-803. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736%2824%2900252-6
• Collaborations in art and medicine: institutional critique, patient participation, and emerging entanglements
  
  Johnstone, F. (2023). Collaborations in art and medicine: institutional critique, patient participation, and emerging entanglements. Leonardo, 56(4), 424-429.
• Collaborations in art and medicine: institutional critique, patient participation, and emerging entanglements
  
  Johnstone, F. (2023). Collaborations in art and medicine: institutional critique, patient participation, and emerging entanglements. Leonardo, 56(4), 424-429. https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_02409
• Mark Morrisroe’s Self-Portraits and Jacques Derrida’s ‘Ruin’
  
  Johnstone, F. (2011). Mark Morrisroe’s Self-Portraits and Jacques Derrida’s ‘Ruin’. Third Text, 25(6), 799-809. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2011.624353

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Care as content and practice: responses to Curating Health.
  
  Johnstone, F. (in press). Care as content and practice: responses to Curating Health.
• Becoming an Image: an interview with artist Liz Orton
  
  Johnstone, F., & Orton, L. (2020). Becoming an Image: an interview with artist Liz Orton.
• #Compulsive Charcoal: an interview with artist Liz Atkin
  
  Johnstone, F., & Atkin, L. (2020). #Compulsive Charcoal: an interview with artist Liz Atkin.
• Artist interview: Fiona Johnstone in conversation with Felicity Allen
  
  Johnstone, F. (2019). Artist interview: Fiona Johnstone in conversation with Felicity Allen.
• Feelings, figures, and a field ready to take centre stage: Representing the Medical Body at the Science Museum.
  
  Johnstone, F. (2019). Feelings, figures, and a field ready to take centre stage: Representing the Medical Body at the Science Museum.
• How do you see me?
  
  Johnstone, F. (2019). How do you see me?
• Curating Being Human: an interview with Wellcome curator Clare Barlow
  
  Johnstone, F. (2019). Curating Being Human: an interview with Wellcome curator Clare Barlow.
• Manifesto for a Visual Medical Humanities
  
  Johnstone, F. (2018). Manifesto for a Visual Medical Humanities.

Report

• Collaborations between artists and academics
  
  Johnstone, F. (2020). Collaborations between artists and academics.