Asa Johannesson

I am a Senior Lecturer in Photography. I teach practice and theory on the BA (Hons) Photography and the MA Photography programmes. 

My practice explores the relationship between queer identity, representation, and materiality. I’m interested in questions to do with queer articulation of voice and agency in fine arts.

Developing from a photographic portrait practice that explores the notion of gender as nonconforming, my work has through experimentations using a large format camera most recently generated the body of work The Queering of Photography. 

The Queering of Photography is a London based project exploring the complex relationship between queer identity and photographic representation. Rooted in studio portraiture, it simultaneously examines the parameters of identity and the parameters of a photograph. The pose and gaze of the sitter as well as the materiality of the photograph are put into question through a formal yet playful aesthetic.

In 2019 I completed my PhD 'The Queering of Photography: A Generative Encounter' at the Royal College of Art. The thesis presents a critique of binary rooted systems of thinking that exist within dominant discourse of photography. By turning to the technological and material conditions underpinning the photograph’s existence, it proposes a queer agential ambition in the form of a material poetics.

Entangling traditional photographic disciplines with contemporary feminist concerns, my research contributes to photography practice and theory, New Materialism, Posthumanism and Queer theory.

I regularly partake in internal PGR examination. In 2020 I was the external examiner for RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia (William Alan Cunningham Polson's PhD thesis 'for me to be photographed with: reframing the self-portrait.' I am the course and subject external examiner for the BA (Hons) Photography with Video programme at Ulster University in Belfast.

I'm currently writing a Research Monograph on queer representation, nonbinary philosophy, and photographic materiality. It will be published by Routledge in 2023.

I am interested in supervising PhD and MRes students in the following areas: feminist photographic practices and theories, queer methodologies, queer photographic practices and theories, queer activism and representation, New Materialism, Posthumanism, photography and ontology, non-dialectical contemporary philosophy, process-led photographic research. 

I work across practice and theory on the BA and MA Photography programmes. A critical, discursive, approach to photography is core to the pedagogy that underpins the delivery of my modules and lectures, in practice as well as in theory. This attitude to teaching design, where I continually bridge curriculum delivery with artistic strategies and learning outcomes, is productive as it helps students gaining a critical attitude to art practice and an informed understanding of the set assessment criteria. It helps ensuring that content and forms of teaching operate productively on a day-to-day basis as well as following the university guidelines. A recent example is the Year 2 practice module The Material Photograph on the BA Photography programme, which I designed in 2019. Its keys principle is to enable students to critically assess their chosen material and technical methods within the production of their work and in relation to their project concept. This approach has enabled a learning environment where learning outcomes are integrated (concept, materialities, techniques, presentation). The Material Photograph has greatly benefited the undergraduate students as they have gained confidence in pursuing a critically attuned photographic practice, evidenced in production, exhibition presentation, and accompanied writing. The pedagogy developed has further helped entangling practice with theory.

Publications

• 2021 Åsa Johannesson, ‘Polaroid Skins: The Queering of Photography’ in Yes & No, Issue 03:03, UK
• 2020 Åsa Johannesson and Clair Le Couteur, ‘Nonbinary Difference: Dionysus, Arianna, and the Fictive Arts of Museum Photography’ in Joshua G. Adair and Amy K. Levin (eds.), Museums, Sexuality, and Gender Activism, New York and London: Routledge
• 2019 Åsa Johannesson, The Queering of Photography: A Generative Encounter, PhD Thesis, Royal College of Art, London
• 2010 Åsa Johannesson The Boy & The Twins. Self-published photobook with support of The Welcome Trust and Self Publish Be Happy, 2010

Selected conference papers

• 2019 ‘The Queering of Photography,’ Diversifying the Portrait: Image and Identity, Merton College, University of Oxford, Oxford, 17 May 2019
• 2018 ‘Looking Out, Looking In’, A Carnival of Entanglement, Practice Research Symposium, Royal College of Art, London, 25 Jan 2018
• 2018 ‘Turn’, Atmosphere, Practice Research Symposium, University of Surrey, Guildford, Jan, 2018
• 2016 ‘The Gendering of the Photographic, Writing Photographs, Symposium, London College of Communication. London, UK, 1 Jun 2016
• 2015 ‘Queer Passing and Queer Aesthetics’, Disrupting Visibility: The Politics of Passing, Conference, Goldsmiths College, London, UK,12 Jun 2015
• 2015 ‘Failed Queerness’, The Subjectivity and Feminisms Research, Symposium, Chelsea College of Art. London, UK, 12 February 2015

Solo exhibitions

• 2019 The Queering of Photography, Dyson Gallery, London
• 2016 Looking Out, Looking In, Landskrona Foto Festival, Landskrona, Sweden
• 2016 Looking Out, Looking In, Photography and the Archive Research Centre, London, UK
• 2015 Looking Out, Looking In, MOCA London, London, UK
• 2015 The White Gaze, Växjö Konsthall, Växjö, Sweden
• 2013 The Boy & The Twins, Gothenburg Biennale, Gallery Panncentralen, Mariestad, Sweden
• 2011 The Boy & The Twins, Fotogalleriet format, Malmö, Sweden
• 2011 The Boy & The Twins, Smålands museum, Växjö, Sweden

 Selected group exhibitions

• 2021 Peckham 24, Copeland Gallery, London
• 2020 With Monochrome Eyes, Borough Road Gallary, London
• 2019 The Urgency of the Arts, FutureLab, Shanghai
• 2019 SHOW RCA, Royal College of Art, London
• 2019 Entanglement, The Opera, Royal College of Art, London
• 2018 Tbilisi Night of Photography, Fabrika, Tbilisi, Georgia
• 2018 FLIGHT MODE, Assembly Point, London
• 2018 Flow & Flux, Triangle Space, Chelsea College of Art, London
• 2017 Daybreak , Safehouse 1 & 2, London
• 2017 Sight Unseen, Dyson Gallery, London
• 2014 8 +1 konstnärer, Smålands museum, Kulturparken Småland, Växjö, Sweden
• 2012 TRANSportrait, Minshar Gallery, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel
• 2010 Photo-ID, Hereford Photography Festival, Hereford, UK
• 2009 Shadow of a Doubt, Galerie Michel Jourmiac, Paris, France
• 2009 Photo ID, The Forum, Norwich, UK
• 2009 SHOW RCA 2009, Royal College of Art, London, UK
• 2009 Surfacing, 12 Star Gallery, European Commission Office, London.
• 2008 The Terry O'Neill Award 2008, Fulham Palace, London, UK
• 2008 Moment, Riga Art Space, Riga, Latvia
• 2008 NICE08, The Novas Contemporary Urban Centre, Liverpool, UK
• 2008 The Other, International Talent Support, Trieste, Italy
• 2007 Fellow Travellers, Salford Museum & Art Gallery, Manchester