My name is Paula John (she/her) and I am a visual artist, writer, and scholar. Common themes across my creative and academic work include performance, embodiment, sexuality, and maternity. My visual arts practice spans photography, film, and textiles, with the content and themes of each piece generally informing the medium I work in. Lately my practice has shifted towards sculpture, and I am currently working on a long-term project about girlhood.

Everything I do is informed by a queer feminist riot grrrl sensibility; this guides me in where I put my time, what I learn, the knowledge I want to create in the world, and how I show up for people.

I earned my PhD in Theatre & Performance studies from York University, where my research focused on feminist performance art and the history of Spiritualism and science. My research interests and areas of expertise more broadly include gender performance, embodiment, sexuality, feminist epistemologies, and knowledge production.

Some of my current personal writing projects include:

• The adaptation of my doctoral dissertation (titled, “Performing on and in the Borderlands: Embodiment, Authority, and Knowledge Production in Scientist and Spiritualist Confrontations”) into a monograph.
• A longform essay on mountaineering and the performance of scientific and lesbian masculinity in the 19th Century