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.

 

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.
• Art and the Critical Medical Humanities
  
  Johnstone, F., Morehead, A., & Wiltshire, I. (Eds.). (2026). Art and the Critical Medical Humanities. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350506367
• 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

• The Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities responds to the Wellcome Trust’s report on Archives, manuscripts and material culture (AMCs) in life, health, and wellbeing research
  
  Barratt, H., Johnstone, F., & McGuire, C. (2026). The Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities responds to the Wellcome Trust’s report on Archives, manuscripts and material culture (AMCs) in life, health, and wellbeing research. Wellcome Open Research, 11, Article 111. https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.25676.1
• 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.