Elli Johnson
Artist Researcher
Elli Johnson worked as a theatre director and writer before returning to academia in her 40s. She completed her master’s at University College London (English: Issues in Modern Culture) in 2024 and is currently working towards her PhD at Edge Hill University. Elli’s research is practice-based (art/performance). Her practice research PhD utilises an artistic walking practice to explore ways of mapping the discursive and embodied experience of perimenopause. This research project focuses on perimenopause as a liminal experience: it lasts an indeterminate length of time, alters in temporal intensity and varies from person to person. This PhD seeks to investigates how an artistic walking practice might offer new ways to illuminate this liminal experience through connection and engagement with a specific terrain: tidal islands. The tidal landscape offers new ways to illuminate the generative potentialities of liminality in perimenopause while acknowledging its inherent precarity and uncertainty. As a Liverpool based artist Elli is excited to focus her research on Hilbre island, to explore the possibilities that arise from protracted engagement with this landscape.
