Dawn Woolley

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United Kingdom °1980
research interests: consumer culture, feminism, self-portraiture, still life, marxism
affiliation: Leeds Arts University
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Dawn Woolley is an artist, a research fellow at Leeds Arts University and an Honorary Research Fellow, in the Faculty Research Centre Business in Society at, Coventry University. She completed an MA in Photography (2008) and PhD by project in Fine Art (2017) at the Royal College of Art. Woolley’s research examines contemporary consumerism and the commodified construction of gendered bodies, paying particular attention to the new mechanisms of interaction afforded by social networking sites.

 

Recent solo exhibitions include; “Consumed: Stilled Lives” Perth Centre for Photography, Australia, (2021), “Dance for Good & Exercise Your Rights” Public Space One gallery, Iowa City, (Hard Stop 2020), “Consumed: Stilled Lives” Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds (2019) and “Visual Pleasure”, Hippolyte Photography Gallery, Helsinki, Finland (2013), Vilniaus Fotografijos Galerija, Lithuania (2012) and Ffotogallery, Cardiff (2011).

 

Recent publications include: “The Dissecting Gaze: Fashioned Bodies on Social Networking Sites”, in Revisiting the Gaze: Feminism, Fashion and the Female Body, (London: Bloomsbury, 2020) and ‘Aberrant consumers: Selfies and fat admiration websites’ Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society, 6(2). Consuming the Body: Capitalism, Social Media and Commodification is due to be published in 2022 by I B Tauris.

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research expositions

  • SAR 2021 presentation - Dawn Woolley (2022) author(s): Dawn Woolley, Jonas Howden Sjøvaag published in: SAR Conference 2020
    What happens to queer community, bodily expression & identity when queer spaces are closed & communities move online? This workshop critically reflects on, & invites participation in, the collaborative project Bois of Isolation: An Instagram platform for people of marginalised genders to share selfies of their spaces & processes of queering gender binaries in the pandemic. The project uses hashtag commons & selfies to challenge the hegemonic visual culture social media can perpetuate: Binarised gender stereotypes, exclusion of bodies deemed ‘other’, & hierarchies of value in which white, able-bodied, heterosexual, young & ‘healthy’ are supreme. Bois of Isolation contributes to communal aesthetic spaces in which bodily & gender plurality & fluidity are expressed & celebrated.
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