Julia Johnson

Julia's research interrogates photography’s potential to support mental health recovery, as a participative, therapeutic catalyst that is relevant to an emerging field of study: for facilitating conversations between groups of people experiencing mental health issues and for therapists and researchers who recognise the potential of participants’ photographs as a form of visual research data. Julia has been awarded a scholarship by London Doctoral Design Centre to support her PhD research enquiries.

Julia's multimedia projects developed from working with diverse marginalised communities including: Eastern European migrant workers, Refugee communities based in the Calais "Jungle"’, Slovakian Roma communities and members of the UK soldiering community who have experienced homelessness or entered the criminal justice system in the aftermath of war.

In 2012, she delivered a participatory photography programme to Cambridgeshire's Gypsy and Traveller youth community. At the time, the programme aimed to provide the community with the tools to produce their own forms of self-representation as a response to the media’s stereotypical portrayal of this notoriously private community. Julia continues to facilitate photography workshops in a participative manner and is currently working with the NHS Recovery College.

Julia also works as a commercial freelance photographer.