Personal profile
Biography
Portrait of Laura by Alan Dimmick.
Expertise and key outputs
Laura Gonzalez is an artist and writer. Her recent practice encompasses film, dance, photography and text, and her work has been exhibited and published in the UK, Spain and Portugal. She has spoken at numerous conferences and events, including the Museum for the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, the Medical Museum in Copenhagen, College Arts Association and the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society. When she is not following Freud, Lacan and Marx’s footsteps with her camera, she runs psychoanalytic seminars at various UK and European institutions.
Her most recent project, completed in 2016, investigated psychoanalytic approaches to making and understanding objects of seduction, including an examination of parallels between artistic and analytic practices, a study of Manolo Blahnik’s shoes as objects of desire, a disturbing encounter with Marcel Duchamp’s last work, and the creation of a psychoanalytically inspired Discourse of the Artefact, a framework enabling the circulation of questions and answers through a relational approach to artworks. She has written on the seductive qualities of Philippe Stack’s Juicy Salif. She is the author of an edited collection on madness to which she contributed a work on hysteria. She has performed with various dance companies, including Michael Clark. Her current research explores knowledge and the body of the hysteric through text, dance performance and video. She has just written a book on seduction and art, published by Cambridge Scholars in July 2016. She has curated a show on maternal art at Lindner project space in Berlin, which travelled to London in June 2015. She is faculty and advisor for an international MFA and PhD low residency programme at Transart Institute, and co-director of @TheGlasgowJam, a Contact Improvisation organisation dedicated to providing multidisciplinary jams to the community.
Supervision interests
Laura is interested in supervising research degree projects focusing on:
• Breath and voice;
• Eastern cosmologies and philosophies;
• Psychoanalytic approaches to art, especially Freudian and Lacanian;
• Hysteria in art and performance;
• Dance and art;
• One-to-one, durational, intimate performance;
• Performance for the camera;
• Gaze in visual work;
• Reflexive and self-reflexive methodologies;
• Innovative forms of writing.
Current and completed PhD supervision
Laura currently supervises the following research degree students:
- Sonia Allori, Aspects of specialised training for Deaf performers at RCS, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (as Joint Supervisor)
- Deborah Norris, Cathy Marston–A Female Author of Narrative Ballet, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (as Joint Supervisor)
- Josh Armstrong, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (as Principal Supervisor)
- Catherine Small, The Place of Hysteria Within Music: War, Trauma and Resistance
She has successfully completed the supervision of:
- Myria Christophini, Animating Peace: A Practice-Led Inquiry into the potential of Animation to act as a tool for peace-building, The Glasgow School of Art (as Co-supervisor)
- Cara Broadley, Outlining the Gap: visualising design research methods, The Glasgow School of Art (as Primary Supervisor)
- Mitch Miller, The mytho-geographical line, the time map and the tactical drawing: A Practice-led inquiry into the Dialectogram, The Glasgow School of Art (as Primary Supervisor)
- Emma Balkind, Estovers: Practice based research on the concept of the commons within contemporary art, The Glasgow School of Art (as Co-supervisor)
- Christopher Danowski, The Medium and the Message: Afro-Cuban Trance and Western Theatrical Performance, Transart Institute (as Primary Supervisor)
- Inês Bento Coelho, Choreography within a Visual Arts Process. Devising Performative Installations through Choreographic Approaches, The Glasgow School of Art (as External Supervisor)
- Margaret Hart, Collage in the Posthuman Era: Gender and Becoming, Transart Institute and Plymouth University (as Director of Studies)
- Flavia Domingues D'Avila, Syncretic theatre and its use in devising, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (as Principal Supervisor)
- Stephanie Lamprea, The Re-Materialized Voice: A performance study of the contemporary classical voice through extended techniques, multi-disciplinary performance, and vocal composition and improvisation via various eco-materialist perspectives, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (as joint DPerf Supervisor)
- Dawn Schultz, Materialization of a Choreographic Process through an Interdisciplinary Approach, PhD (Liverpool John Moores University and Transart Institute)
- Paul Michael Henry, With your feet deep in the Earth: fostering experiences of interdependent selfhood through embodied performance practices, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and University of Glasgow (as Principal Supervisor)
Links
Education / Academic qualifications
PhD, Make me yours: the psychodynamics of seduction through works of art. , Sheffield Hallam University
Oct 2005 → 1 Dec 2010
Award Date: 16 Feb 2011
Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Art, Design and Communication, Centre for Learning and Teaching in Art and Design, University of the Arts, London, UK.
2004 → 2005
Supervising Research Degrees in Art, Design and Communication (SEDA accredited), Centre for Learning and Teaching in Art and Design, University of the Arts, London, UK.
2002 → 2003
MA, Master of Fine Art: Drawing, Wimbledon School of Art
2000 → 2001
BA, Licenciada en Bellas Artes, Universidad del País Vasco
1995 → 2000
External positions
Reader in Contemporary Art and Performance Practice, Glasgow School of Art
Jul 2016 → …
Co-Director, @TheGlasgowJam
9 Dec 2015 → …
Faculty, advisor and supervisor, Transart Institute
Jul 2010 → …
Academic Coordinator (PGR), Glasgow School of Art
19 Jul 2005 → 14 Feb 2017
Keywords
- RZ Other systems of medicine
- ayurveda
- breath
- NX Arts in general
- performance
- photography
- visual art
- theatre
- duarional
- intimate
- seduction
- RM Therapeutics. Pharmacology
- hysteria
- psychoanalysis
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Dear Audience of One: Vantage Points
Gonzalez, L., 1 Sept 2025, In: TURBA. 4, 2, p. 104 105 p.Research output: Contributions to journals › Letter › peer-review
Open Access -
Folded bodies: The hysteric as a nineteenth-century figure
Gonzalez, L. & Bowen, E., 27 Jan 2025, (Submitted).Research output: Contributions to conferences › Paper › peer-review
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Girls on Film
Gonzalez, L., May 2025, The Idler, 102, p. 46-49 4 p.Research output: Contributions to specialist professional publications › Article
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On Inspiration
Gonzalez, L., Bissell, L. & Doolittle, E., Dec 2025, In: Turning Toward Being: The Journal of Ontological Enquiry in Education (JOIE). 3, 2, 2.Research output: Contributions to journals › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
The Present breath
Gonzalez, L., 23 Jan 2025, In: Scene. 12, 1-2, p. 65-80 16 p.Research output: Contributions to journals › Article › peer-review
Open Access
Engagement Activities
- 21 Participation in an external workshop, masterclass, seminar or training course
- 16 Talk for a mainly non-academic audience (e.g. for the general public, community or industry)
- 8 Participation in an academic conference, workshop or symposium
- 8 Talk for a mainly academic audience (e.g. at an academic conference)
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More
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JOIE Special Issue: The Being of Being Creative - Roundtable discussion
Bissell, L. (Speaker), Gonzalez, L. (Speaker) & Doolittle, E. (Speaker)
21 Nov 2025Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in an academic conference, workshop or symposium
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The Hysteric
Gonzalez, L. (Speaker) & Bowen, E. (Speaker)
13 Jul 2025Activity: External performance, talk or presentation › Talk for a mainly non-academic audience (e.g. for the general public, community or industry)
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SHARE #3 symposium On Inspiration
Gonzalez, L. (Organiser), Bissell, L. (Organiser) & Doolittle, E. (Organiser)
10 Jun 2025Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in an academic conference, workshop or symposium
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Freud’s 4pm Session: The Hysteric
Gonzalez, L. (Speaker) & Bowen, E. (Speaker)
3 Apr 2025Activity: External performance, talk or presentation › Talk for a mainly non-academic audience (e.g. for the general public, community or industry)
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Judging panel for One Dance UK Awards
Gonzalez, L. (Project lead)
5 Nov 2024Activity: Business, enterprise and other activities › Other
Prizes
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Breath Practice: Creative Scotland Open Project Funding Award CS-1910-29042
Gonzalez, L. (Recipient), Dec 2019
Prize: Other distinction
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Glasgow Medical Humanities Network Foundation Award
Gonzalez, L. (Recipient) & Marie, A. (Recipient), Jan 2023
Prize: Other distinction
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RCS Student-led Awards: Outstanding Research Supervisor
Broad, S. (Recipient) & Gonzalez, L. (Recipient), 2025
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)