About

Dr. Rachel M. Thomas is an Assistant Professor and Program Leader for the BA and MA Comics, Graphic Novels, and Sequential Arts at Teesside University, UK.

 

She is an interdisciplinary artist/researcher that blurs the boundaries between traditional media, technology and bio-fabrication. Her practice is centred around the medicalized body with specific focus on women's health. Using heuristic research strategies, Thomas seeks to open discourses between the objective medical gaze and the subjective patient experience.

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Her current body of work discusses the loss of identity through the medical standardisation of disease as well as the absence of subjectivity in diagnostic and treatment methods. Her Ph.D thesis is a Canadian Tri-council funded full length graphic novel entitled Shrink: Story of a Fat Girl. The novel both explores the impact of medical and social gazes on fat bodies and uses the medium to promote accessibility of new research outside of the academic sphere.

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Thomas is an internationally situated artist-researcher with variety of national and international grants (SSHRC, Canada Council for the Arts), professional affiliations (University of Calgary, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Science), projects, and residencies in the USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

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Please see CV tab for more details