ABOUT
Dr Johannah Latchem is an artist based in the UK. Her works address themes of law, the legal space punishment and power. Johannah's work is concerned with embodied legal performativities, juridical materials and the tension between the subjective/objective in language in court, and beyond the formalised legal space. She has shown her work in national museum collections and galleries where she has responded to historic legal artefacts and re-imagined them for today's audiences when sometimes very little is known of, or questioned about, their histories. She has also worked in heritage sites, archives, galleries and the street and is the creator of installations using mixed media, drawing, sculpture, metalwork, sound, performance, film and photography. Her works intervene in the material culture of the courthouse to establish new rituals. The creation of new artworks and their role in courtroom performativities challenges the validity of existing courthouse rituals, and exposes the need for new ones to convey revised messages to the public. ​
Her work also examines the woman’s voice in sites of law and order and she was a resident artist and post-doctoral researcher at Oxford University in the Law Faculty, Department of Socio-legal Studies where her artwork and research focussed on marginalised sex worker's forgotten voices in Chancellor's Court collections in the Bodleian Library, and other contemporary UK artists working with the theme of Law. https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/people/johannah-latchem
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Johannah did her PhD in Fine Art/ Art History at Newcastle University, and previously trained at Goldsmiths College University of London and Wimbledon School of Art. Prior to this she was Research Fellow on the Arts and Humanities Research Council Commons and held posts in research and teaching positions in UK universities, in addition to digital projects across business, academic and cultural sectors and research with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She was the Producer of Screening Rights International Film Festival, and has lectured in art and design, published in the field of art and law, identity, museum education and directed an national opera with Birmingham Opera Company and the BBC. Her practice led PhD focused on the subject of courtrooms, maritime law and power. Her work raises issues that resonate with wider public concerns today on the administration of fear by the state, punishment and silencing the female voice.
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Selected Works
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Artist in Residence, OVADA, Oxford, UK, (2023). The Academic Star Chamber 2023: No Stars (2023); Bullingdon Bastard Shuffle (2023); Hi Dave (2023)
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Commission funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation. These Things Matter (2022). Bodleian Libraries University of Oxford with The Museum of Colour and Fusion Arts, November 2022 - February 2023, .
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Pig Club, Modern Art Oxford, April 2022
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No Whole Truths, July 2019, Gallery Vane, Newcastle upon Tyne
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Courting Power, September 2018, Newcastle Guildhall Courtroom, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
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Carry the Woman You Forgot, 2018, Merchant Adventurers Hall, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
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Kiss the Wooden Lady, 2018, The Newcastle Upon Tyne Trinity House, UK
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4Courts, 2017, Knaresborough Castle Courthouse, Ripon Museums of Law and Order Courthouse, Sir Walter Scott's Courtroom Selkirk, Newcastle Guildhall Courtroom