Artist Biography

Joanna Holland is a socially engaged research-artist and curator with a background in creative production.  

She’s interested in how we can live more equitably with each other and our planet. Her investigative practice builds on her background in feminist art histories, cultural inclusion, and biodiversity conservation – alongside her lived experience.

Joanna’s practice explores notions of presence & absence in the making of culture. She’s a passionate advocate of inclusive practice and is driven by the belief that difference, a plethora of voices and stories, give meaning to our world and enable more powerful experiences for everyone.

Joanna’s conceptual and experiential practice explores knowledge production and exchange. She often draws on the work of French Feminist Theorists Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous – by using ‘acts of multiplicity’ to create inclusive, ‘semiotic’ landscapes. These part real & part imagined landscapes are informed by lived experience – including Joanna’s own experience of living with multiple, long-term, chronic conditions. Concepts and works are commonly immersive and uncanny, often including provocations about precarity and possibility.

Joanna is a multidisciplinary artist, and her artworks are heavily influenced by sensory processes. For example, works have explored noises ordinarily unheard, changes to colour perception, and tactile & olfactory investigations of gallery collections. As a result, she uses many different mediums in her work including, but not limited to sound, visual arts, organic materials, food, performance, photography and video.

Joanna works collaboratively, co-producing with different communities, alongside other artists, scientists and academics. She has worked for/with Attenborough Arts Centre, The British Library, Cambridge Conservation Initiative, Cambridge Curiosity & Imagination, Cambridge Junction, Loughborough University, METAL Peterborough, originalprojects, The National Archives, The National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts, the RNIB, The Science Museum, SENSE, St Georges Theatre, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, The University of Cambridge Museums & Botanic Garden and Wysing Arts.

Joanna’s work has been funded by, amongst others, Arts Council - England, Artists Newsletter, The Freelands Foundation, Jerwood Arts, SHAPE, & Unlimited. She occasionally uses [SYNTAX ERROR] as a pseudonym for her artist self. She lives and works in Cambridgeshire with her family and her ravenous cat.

Please take a look at my projects page to find out more about my work. If you would like to know even more, please get in touch via the contact page.

Thanks for reading! Joanna