Oxford-based artist Joanna Kidner’s most recent visual research investigates the inescapable and symbiotic interaction our human selves have with non-human others through visual metaphor in installation, combining contemporary and traditional processes, Joanna works with specific domestic by-products and explores what it is to be human through an autobiographical, feminist, global and ecological lens. Through these materials and processes, she considers the tensions of traditionally anthropocentric imposed systems in opposition to the underlying rhythms that denote alternative natural structures that are more in sync with our corporeal personas than the artificial constructs we contend with in our present-day. Joanna believes that the destruction of our natural habitat will also result in an irretrievable loss of a visual and verbal metaphorical language that we currently take for granted. Therefore, her intention is to also explore the vulnerability of our physical and metaphorical world through her artist research.
Joanna gained a distinction for an MA in art and design education and her research during this time used the medium of film montage, through metaphor, composition sound and textual analysis, to explore how to better understand her position as a female artist educator. Her findings highlight and clarify how the proximity of historically embedded canons from the Enlightenment era are a corollary to those experienced in art education and the art institution today. She also considers the damaging implications of gendering art and design together with the importance for change within art education and the art establishment.
