Asa Johannesson

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

I am photographer. My research comprises of photographic practice and writing and is concerned with the relationship between the terms 'photograph' and 'queer.' In a nutshell, my research explores modes of resistance outside of negation. I'm particularly interested in questions concerning photographic ontology. Developing from a photographic portrait practice that explores the notion of gender as nonconforming, my research has through experimentations using a large format camera most recently generated the photographic works Looking Out, Looking In; Turn; Figural, Figurative; Skin; and Frame.​

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.

External academic roles: 

2020-2024 Course and subject external examiner, BA (Hons) Photography with Video, Ulster University, Belfast, UK

2020 PhD External examiner, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

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. 

Publications

• 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

• 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