Francis is a writer, artist and archivist. They work across text, performance, moving/still image, and participatory workshops in search of escape routes. Particularly invested in humour, metaphor and puns as queer methods, their work often occupies fluid and surprising forms, playing with the conventions of medium and genre.
Francis completed a BA in History and an MSt in History of Art at Oxford, before returning to study at the Ruskin. Francis’ doctoral research focuses on contemporary queer and trans artists working in the English-speaking world. Contending that traditional literary and art criticism is rendered inadequate to approach such works by its desire to pass judgement or move from doubt to insight, this project will develop a creative-critical methodology of research and writing that is instead led by the works' aesthetic, embodied and political convictions. Such a project centres on ‘confusion’ as a generative space and provocative quality in queer and trans life, positioning this open-ended state against criticism’s clear trajectory.