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Dawn Woolley is an artist and a research fellow at Leeds Arts University where she co-convenes the Thing Power Research group, contributes to the institution’s research strategy and mentors research-active staff.
She completed an MA in Photography (2008) and PhD by project in Fine Art (2017) at the Royal College of Art. In 2017 Woolley's photograph The Substitute (holiday) was designated the world's best selfie by GQ magazine, after winning Saatchi Gallery's from selfie to self-expression competition.
Woolley’s research examines the impacts of contemporary consumerism and social networking sites from a queer feminist perspective. Her ongoing research into the impacts of social media content on marginalised communities includes Bois of Isolation, an Instagram-based project aiming to queer the gender binary in selfies (co-created with Dr AC Davidson) and #Rebel Selves, a multi-faceted art project examining surveillance and invisibility on social media. Woolley is a co-investigator on the interdisciplinary project Queer Joy as a Digital Good funded by The Digital good Network (ESRC). In 2025-6 she led Online Objectification, an interdisciplinary participatory project funded by Include+ a network dedicated to exploring and fostering social and digital environments where everyone can thrive (EPSRC). In collaboration with Getaway Girls in Leeds, the project examined girls’ lived experiences of objectifying content online, health and wellbeing impacts and ways to build resilience. Using an intersectional approach, the aim was to better understand how wellbeing is compounded by inequalities and create a digital resource that mitigates against those harms.
Her monograph Consuming the Body: Capitalism, Social Media and Commodification examines the visual characteristics of different types of selfies (#fitspiration, #thinspiration, #fatspiration, #bodypositivity, and #quantifiedself) to understand what these types of self-representation communicate about adherence to and rejection of consumer culture ideals. In the book she identifies key modes of address that compel the consumer to consume: sadistic commands communicated in adverts, TV programmes and magazine articles; a fetishistic gaze that dissects the body into parts to be improved through commodification; and a hystericized insistent presence that compels the consumer to present their body for critique and appreciation that is exemplified in the selfie. In conclusion, the book identifies some creative methods for producing selfies that evade commoditisation and discipline. These methods were explored in the #Rebel Selves project.
Artworks encompassing photography, performance, sculpture, painting, and video appropriate the visual language of popular and commercial culture to examine representations of gender and the social impacts of consumer culture. Woolley also creates public domain interventions in commercial advertising spaces in cities and in virtual ones on online social networking sites. Artworks can be viewed at www.dawnwoolley.com or instagram.com/dawnwoolleystudio. In 2017 Woolley began a collaborative project - Hard Stop - with American artist Davin Watne. instagram.com/hard_stop
Monograph
Woolley, D. (2022) Consuming the Body: Capitalism, Social Media and Commodification. London: Bloomsbury. 2022.
Articles
Woolley, Dawn, Are, Carolina, Brown, Genavee, Clinch, Sarah, Dalton, Ben, Steeds, Madeleine, Webster, Lexi, Wilson, Alice. (2026). Collaging together-apart: representations of queer joy in digital spaces. Journal of Gender Studies, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2026.2654174
Steeds, Madeleine, Clinch, Sarah, Are, Carolina, Brown, Genavee, Dalton, Ben, Webster, Lexi, Wilson, Alice and Woolley, Dawn (2025) Queer Joy on Social Media: Exploring the Expression and Facilitation of Queer Joy in Online Platforms. CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713592
Woolley, Dawn (2025) #Rebel Selves: Queer Selfies as Practices of Care. photographies journal, 18 (1). pp. 137-158. https://lau.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/17860/
Woolley, D., & Davidson, AC. (2023) ‘“Bois of Isolation”: Queering place, gender binaries and the ‘self’ through selfies in pandemic lockdown', of Journal of Gender Studies. DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2023.2226089
Broadhead, S., Bale, I., Case, K., Hussain, M., and Woolley, D. (2020) ‘Exploring the black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) student experience using a Community of Inquiry approach’, Journal of Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 22(1), pp. 112-131.
Woolley, D. (2018) ‘Critical Clickbait: Artist Interventions in Commercial Visual Culture’, InMedia: The French Journal of Media Studies, 7(1).
Woolley, D. (2017) ‘Aberrant consumers: Selfies and fat admiration websites’, Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal or Body Weight and Society, 6 (2), pp. 206-222.
Book Sections
Woolley, Dawn (2023) Desire Lines: Quantified-Self-Portraits Produced with a Fitness Tracking Watch. In: Wearable Objects and Curative Things: Materialist Approaches to the Intersections of Fashion, Art, Health and Medicine. Palgrave Studies in Fashion and the Body . Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 211-237. ISBN 978-3-031-40016-2
Woolley, Dawn and Luger, Jason (2023) The Deviant Leisure of Gym Bodies, Militarized Branding and Fascistic Creeps. In: Deviant Leisure and Events of Deviance: A Transgressive Compendium. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 143-172. ISBN 9783031177927
Woolley, Dawn (2023) The Quantified Self, the ideology of health and fat. In: The Body Productive: Rethinking capitalism, work and the body. Bloomsbury, London, pp. 137-156. ISBN 9780755639519
Woolley, Dawn and Worth, Zara (2022) God Shaped Hole. In: Painting, Photography, and the Digital: Crossing the Borders of the Medium. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 1-5275-8917-X
Woolley, Dawn and Worth, Zara (2022) Creative Consumption: Art About Eating on Instagram. In: #FOODINSTAGRAM: Identity, Influence, Negotiation. University of Illinois Press, Illinois, pp. 101-112. ISBN 9780252086540
Woolley, D. (2020) The Dissecting Gaze: Fashioned Bodies on Social Networking Sites. In: M. Laign and J. Wilson, eds., Revisiting the Gaze: Feminism, Fashion and the Female Body. I B Tauris.
Woolley, D. (2019) The Iconography of Disruptive Bodies: Social Media and Medical Identities. In: J. Melkumova and H. Muzaffar, eds., Bodies in flux: embodiments at the end of anthropocentrism. Leiden: Brill Publishing.
Edited Volumes
Woolley, Dawn, and Orcutt, Elizabeth (eds) Special issue “Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self-portraiture”, MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture Journal, 2025.
Woolley, Dawn, and Chambers, Paula (eds) Going Feral: A Proposition for a Speculative Animism in the Arts, Vernon Press, 2024.
Broadhead, Sam, and Woolley, Dawn (eds) Special Issue “Visual Arts and Design: Practice-Based Research” Arts (ISSN 2076-0752; indexed within ESCI). 2024.
Woolley, Dawn, Johnstone, Fiona, Sampson, Ellen, and Chambers, Paula (eds) Curative Things: objects at the intersections of art and fashion, health and medicine, eds., London: Palgrave, 2023.
Book Review
Woolley, D. (2024) The Joy of Reading a Feminist Extravaganza, MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture Journal https://www.maifeminism.com/the-joy-of-reading-a-feminist-extravaganza-book/
Woolley, D. (2017) Review of ‘Mass Photography: Collective Histories of Everyday Life’ By Annebella Pollen, London: I B Tauris. Photography and Culture, 10 (3).
Exhibitions
Woolley, Dawn (2026) Relics: Objects of Devotion for Contemporary Life, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, 2nd May – 30th August 2026
Group Exhibition. (2026) Against the Powerlessness of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA) 20 Sep 2025 - 11 Jan 2026
Group Exhibition. (2025) Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup (Yorkshire Sculpture International 2025 Sculpture Network) Henry Moore Institute’s Sculpture Research Library, Leeds. 6th Dec 2025
Group Exhibition. (2025) San Francisco Arthouse Short Festival (4th Nov 2025)
Group Exhibition. (2025) Cleveland Arthouse Film Awards (13th Nov 2025).
Group Exhibition. (2025) Hungry Eyes festival, Gießen, Germany, (October 2025). (Interloper)
Group Exhibition. (2025) Mannheim Arts and Film Festival, Germany, August 2025
Group Exhibition. (2025) Speak Up! Protest Zines as Resistance, Center for Photography Woodstock, Kingston, NY 12 July – 10 August 2025
Group Exhibition. (2025) Flashpoint! Protest Photography in Print Reading Room, Contact Photography Festival, Contact Gallery, Toronto 1st May - 21st June 2025.
Group Exhibition. (2025) Self-Portrait with Bystander, Forderzimmer Gallery, Berlin, 22nd February – 22nd March 2025.
Woolley, D. (2024) Rebel Selves, Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces Warrington, 3rd October – 23rd November 2024
Group Exhibition. (2024) A Real Woman Billboard Exhibition, UK, July – August 2024, Season 4 of The Gallery.
Group Exhibition. (2024) Studio Grotesque Screening, Museu de l’Ebre, Tortosa, Spain, 16th June 2024
Group Exhibition. (2024) Mojo International Film Awards, 2024
Group Exhibition. (2024) Stance, curated by We Are Sweet, Art Bypass Gallery, London, 13th June– 23rd June 2024
Group Exhibition. (2024) Mokkho international film festival, Pondicherry, India, Best Dance Film award, May 2024
Woolley, D. (2024) RupturEXHIBIT, Hampton Wick, 16th – 22nd July 2024
Group Exhibition. (2024) Future Now, FORMAT 24, LCB Depot Leicester, March 2nd – April 26th 2024
Group Exhibition. (2024) Gender and Gesture: Thinking Beyond the Visual, Foyer Gallery, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham. March 11 - April 8 2024; Woxsen University Hyderabad, India.
Group Exhibition. (2024) Interrupt, Queerfest Norwich 2024, The Undercroft Gallery 8 – 24 Feb 2024
Woolley, D. (2024) Left Bank Leeds, 10th January – 9th February 2024
Woolley, D. (2023) Joy and Revolution: Rebel Selves, Diskurs Gallery, Berlin, 8 June – 14 July 2023
Group Exhibition. Mirror of Self, Hangar Photo Centre, Photo Brussels, 27 January – 25 March 2023.
Group Exhibition. Photography Day: The Queer Edition, 27 August 2022, Preus Museum, Horten, Norway.
Group Exhibition. Watne, D. and Woolley, D. 2022. Joy and Other Feats of Strength, The Charlotte Street Foundation Gallery, Kansas City, 10 June – 23 July 2022, (collaboration with Davin Watne).
Solo Exhibition. Woolley, D. 2022. Consumed: Stilled Lives, bildkultur Galerie, Stuttgart, 25 March – 30 April 2022.
Group Exhibition. Woolley, D. 2022. New Talents, Kommunale Galerie, Berlin, 30 January 30 – 27 March 2022.
Group Exhibition. Woolley, D. (2021) Imagining Histories, Oriel y Bont, University of South Wales, Pontypridd, 1 November – 17 December 2021.
Woolley, D. (2021) Consumed: Stilled Lives, Perth Centre for Photography, Australia, 19 February – 3 April 2021.
Group Exhibition. Woolley, D. (2021) “Does GENDER really matter?”, galleria VisioniI Altre, Venice, Italy, 16 - 30 January 2021.
Group Exhibition. Woolley, D. and Watne, D. (2021) Ways of Protest, Elysium Gallery, Swansea, 28 November 2020 – 23 January 2021.
Woolley, D. and Watne, D. (2020) Dance for Good & Exercise Your Rights, solo exhibition of Hard Stop collaborative works, Public Space One gallery, Iowa City, 2 October – 4 November 2020.
Group Exhibition. Woolley, D. (2019) The Arcades Project, Duke Street Arcade, Cardiff, 13 November - 6 December 2019.
Woolley, D. (2019) Consumed: stilled lives. Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University, Leeds. 12 July – 22 August 2019.
Woolley, D. (2019) Modern nature building wrap. The Hepworth, Wakefield.
Group Exhibition. (2019) Swap Editions: BREX-Kit. Creekside Projects, London. 21 March – 24 March 2019.
Woolley, D. and Watne, D. (2018) Dreamers. The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, New York. 22 December – 29 December 2018.
Woolley, D. (2018) Consumed: Stilled Lives. Blyth Gallery, London. 26 September – 2 November 2018.
Woolley, D. and Watne, D. (2018) Freedomination. 35 Chapel Walk, Sheffield. 1 March – 15 March 2018.
Woolley, D. (2018) Consumed: Stilled Lives. Ffotogallery, Cardiff. 13 January – 3 February 2018.
Woolley, D. (2017) Consumed: Stilled Lives. Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge. 21 September – 14 October 2017.
Group Exhibition. (2017) ‘The Substitute (holiday)’ in From Selfie to Self Expression. Saatchi Gallery, London. March – September 2017.
Group Exhibition. (2017) ‘The Substitute, Visual Pleasure and Interloper series’ in Self/Selfie. Ballarat International Photography Festival, Australia. 19 August – 17 September 2017.
Group Exhibition. (2017) ‘The Substituted, Visual Pleasure and Interloper series’ in “Le Féminin” Circulation(s). Voies Off, Arles, France. July 2017.
Woolley, D. (2016) Consumed: Stilled Lives. Dyson Gallery, London. 14 December – 18 December 2016.
Woolley, D. (2016) Consumer Poster Project. Various Locations in Cardiff and London. 7 November 2014 – 18 December 2016.
Group Exhibition. (2014) ‘Cut to the Measure of Desire’ installation in All Coherence Gone?. BayArts, Cardiff. 23 September -17 October 2014. Curated by Frances Woodley.
Group Exhibition. (2014) ‘The Dolls House’ series in Basically. Forever. Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. 9 August – 24 August 2014.
Group Exhibition. (2014) ‘The Substitute’ in Recollection. Ruimte Morguen Gallery, Antwerp. 14 March – 3 May 2014.
Woolley, D. (2013) Visual Pleasure. Hippolyte Photography Gallery, Helsinki. 4 July – 2 August 2013.
Group Exhibition. (2013) Wild Oats. Milkwood Art Gallery, Cardiff. 4 May – 18 May 2013.
Woolley, D. (2013) ‘The Substitute, Visual Pleasure and Interloper’ series in Wasteland. Greenlease Gallery, Kansas City.
Group Exhibition. (2013) ‘The Substitute’ series in Look Attractive. UMKC Gallery of Art, Kansas City. November 8 2012 – January 14 2013.
Woolley, D. (2012) Short Lived Pleasure. Bloc Projects, Sheffield. September – October 2012.
Woolley, D. (2012) Visual Pleasure. Vilniaus Fotografijos Galerija, Lithuania. July – August 2012.
Group Exhibition. (2011) ‘The Doll’s House’ series in Worldwide @ Young Portfolio. Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Yamanshi, Japan. 22 October 2011 – 29 January 2012.
Woolley, D. (2011) Visual Pleasure. Ffotogallery, Cardiff. 21 July – 6 August 2011.
Group Exhibition. (2011) ‘Cut the Measure of Desire’ video in Objects of Desire. Freud Museum, London.
Group Exhibition. (2011) ‘The Substitute’ series in Time After. MCK Gallery, Split, Croatia.
Group Exhibition. (2011) ‘The Substitute’ series in Expo et Reflexions ser les Stereotypes Sexistes. College de Bourg Mestre et Echevins de Schaerbeek, Brussels.
Woolley, D. (2010) The Substitute. Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University. February – April 2010.
Group Exhibition. (2010) ‘The Substitute’ series in My World: Visions of 21st Century Feminism. European Women’s Lobby, Brussels.
Group Exhibition (2009) ‘Interloper video’ in Cream International Festival for Arts and Media. Tokyo University of the Arts, Yokohama, Japan. 31 October – 29 November 2009.
Group Exhibition (2009) ‘Interloper video’ in Abandon Normal Devices Festival. Fact Centre, Liverpool. 23 September – 27 September 2009.
Group Exhibition (2009) ‘Interloper video’ in Evolution Media Arts Festival. Hyde Park Picture House and Burton Art Gallery, Leeds.
Group Exhibition. (2009) ‘The Substitute’ series in The Human Canvas. The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
Group Exhibition. (2009) ‘The Substitute’ series in Transfixed Motion/Transitory Still. Sheffield Hallam University. 3 April – 18 April 2009.
Group Exhibition. (2009) ‘Interloper video’ in Art vs. Film. University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA.
Woolley, D. (2006) The Other Woman. The Lighthouse, Wolverhampton. February – April 2006.
Curatorial Projects
Hancock, David, Tait, Angela, Woolley, Dawn and Chambers, Paula (curators) (2024) The Omnipotence of Dreams, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, 17th October 2024 – 23rd February 2025.
Woolley, D. (2022) Living a Neoliberal Digital Life, Curated Selection for Axis Web, Nov 2022. www.axisweb.org/collections/gq97toi2z5kc
Woolley, D. and McAra, C. (2021) Curative Things advertising poster commissions, Various locations, Leeds, Supported by Leeds Arts University, February 2021.
Woolley, D. and Craddock, J. (2018) On Show. Curator’s Choice, Leeds Arts University, Leeds. 1 November – 31 December 2018.
Woolley, D and Herrington, K. (2018) Still Life: Things Devouring Time. The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, The University of Leeds. 21 November 2018 – 23 March 2019.
Consumer with Peter Kennard, David Watne and Ellie Harrison. (2015) Commercial advertising spaces, Cardiff. March – May 2015.
Create, Observe, Perform, [Video exhibition]. (2012) Alkovi Gallery, Helsinki. October – December 2012. Funded by The Arts Council of Helsinki. (Co-curated with James Moore).
Virtually Real, [Group show – touring]. (2010-2011) Blyth Gallery, London and Burton Gallery, Leeds. 24 November – 17 December 2010 and 28 February – 21 May 2011. (Co-curated with James Moore).
Failure/Success. (2009) Tactile Bosch Gallery, Cardiff. July 18th – August 15th 2009. (RCA Photography graduates).
Making Love to My Ego Group Show [publication]. (2007) Castlefield Gallery, Manchester. Funded by the Arts Council of England (NW), The Royal Netherlands Cultural Attache and Castlefield Gallery. (Co-curated with James Moore).
Another Product @ Cornerhouse [Group Installation]. (2006) Cornerhouse Art Centre. January – April 2006. (Co-curated with James Moore).