Staff profile

Why do art, images and objects matter? My research explores how visual and material culture shapes knowledge, creates meaning, and helps us understand ourselves and the world differently.

I am an art historian and medical humanities scholar based across the School of Modern Languages and Cultures and the Institute for Medical Humanities. I teach on the Visual Arts and Film programme and lead the Visual & Material Lab as part of the Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities. My work brings together interests in contemporary art; visual and material culture; museums, collections and curating; health and medicine; and the creative and critical possibilities of interdisciplinary collaboration.

My current research focuses on contemporary artist-led collaborations in healthcare and medicine. I am fascinated by how artists can move between different worlds, bringing together scientific knowledge, clinical expertise and everyday experience. My second monographic book project, Critical Interlopers: Artists as Researchers and Collaborators in Healthcare and Medicine, explores how artists can challenge assumptions, disrupt established ways of thinking, and open up new possibilities for collaboration and knowledge production.

I am co-editor of Art and the Critical Medical Humanities (Bloomsbury, 2026), which explores the distinctive contribution artistic practices can make to understanding health and human flourishing. The volume grew out of Confabulations: art practice, art history, critical humanities, an international public programme and seminar series that I co-directed 2021-23.

My first monograph, AIDS & Representation (Bloomsbury, 2023), examined how artists responded to the AIDS epidemic through portraiture, self-representation, and experiments with visual form. My wider research has explored medical and cultural heritage, the material culture of health, and the intersections of art, medicine and curatorial practice. Projects have included Matariki-funded collaborations with researchers from Queen’s University and Uppsala University; the Wellcome-funded Thinking Through Things; and curatorial work with the historic art therapy collection The Adamson Collection, which culminated in the exhibition Mr A Moves in Mysterious Ways.

I enjoy working across disciplines and sectors and have collaborated with artists, clinicians, biomedical researchers, museums, archives, patient groups and community organisations in the UK and internationally. Whether through research, teaching, exhibitions, workshops or public engagement, I am interested in creating spaces where different kinds of knowledge can meet, challenge one another, and generate something new.

My teaching reflects these interests. I teach across visual culture, art history and medical humanities, and I am especially interested in helping students develop new ways of thinking about images, objects, visuality, culture and society. 

I welcome enquires from potential PhD candidates interested in areas related to my research.

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

• 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
• Anti-Portraiture: Challenging the Limits of the Portrait
  
  Johnstone, F., & Imber, K. (Eds.). (2022). Anti-Portraiture: Challenging the Limits of the Portrait. Bloomsbury.
• 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

• Critical interloping, collaboration, and entangling the ‘expert cultures’ of art, science and lived experience: Jacqueline Donachie’s artist-led research on myotonic dystrophy
  
  Johnstone, F. (2026). Critical interloping, collaboration, and entangling the ‘expert cultures’ of art, science and lived experience: Jacqueline Donachie’s artist-led research on myotonic dystrophy. Medical Humanities. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2026-013979
• 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. 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.
• 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.
• Artist interview: Fiona Johnstone in conversation with Felicity Allen
  
  Johnstone, F. (2019). Artist interview: Fiona Johnstone in conversation with Felicity Allen.
• 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.