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(Note: website updates are in progress.)

Deniz Johns is an artist, filmmaker, researcher and educator. Her recent works investigate the radical political potential of aesthetic negation—through absence, abstraction, distortion, and deconstruction—as a means to subvert dominant visual cultures and foster radical spectatorship. She also writes on the politics of representation, especially concerning the oppressed, and the power dynamics between artwork and viewer in relation to race, gender identity, and agency. These inquiries contribute to emergent discourse in international artistic and research communities and have been published in English and French.

In 2012, Deniz co-founded collective-iz in London, with artists and filmmakers Maria Anastassiou, Amy Dickson, and Karolina Raczynski. Since then, collective-iz has programmed and produced significant experimental audio/visual events.

Deniz worked as a full-time Lecturer at Lancaster University from 2021 to 2026, where she also became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) in 2023 and gained a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCAP) in 2023. Her research-led, interdisciplinary teaching brings together moving image practice, critical and contextual studies in film and contemporary art, with experience across undergraduate and postgraduate education. She has designed and convened theory- and practice-based modules, developed curricula and assessment, and delivered lectures, seminars, workshops, tutorials and practical filmmaking sessions. She has also supervised undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral research projects, supporting students in developing both their critical thinking and creative practice.