Ju Gosling

Dr Ju Gosling aka ju90 is a 50-something Disabled artist who works mainly with digital lens-based media, but also with performance, text and sound, and has gained an international reputation for her work. Based in the main London 2012 Host Borough of Newham, Ju is a founder and Artistic Director of Together! 2012 CIC and Folk in Motion CIC. These Disabled-led organisations are taking forward the Paralympic cultural Legacy in East London, with Together! 2012 CIC joining Arts Council England's National Portfolio in April 2018. Ju also Co-Chairs Regard, the national LGBT disabled people's organisation, and represents LGBT disabled people on a number of national and local committees. Ju was recently named by QX Magazine as an "unsung hero of the gay scene" for this work, nominated by Sue Sanders, founder of LGBT History Month. Raised in the marshlands of Essex and originally trained as a dancer, Ju has also worked extensively in publishing and the media, having begun her career in 1983 as a fanzine editor, and launched Bettany Press in 1994. Ju has been based in East London since the mid-1980s, although she spent 18 months living and working in Cornwall in the 1990s while she was completing her PhD in Communication and Image Studies. An internet pioneer, Ju's was the first PhD in the UK to be presented as a multimedia website (including a 60-minute film), and explored the future of the book in an electronic age alongside a critical survey of girls' reading in the 20th century. Ju remains one of the world's leading experts on girls' school stories and the St Trinian's films, and has lectured in the UK and Europe about these as well as writing for a range of publications. Ju is also credited with inventing the digital selfie, with her 1997 website My Not-So-Secret Life as a Cyborg. See www.ju90.co.uk