SUSANA DE NORONHA is an anthropologist with a PhD in sociology and a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra – NECES research group. She was awarded the “Prémio CES Para Jovens Cientistas Sociais de Língua Portuguesa 2007” and the “Prémio Bernardino Machado 2003” for the best student of the degree of Anthropology of the University of Coimbra. She is the author of the books – A Tinta, a Mariposa e a Metástase: a arte como experiência, conhecimento e acção sobre o cancro de mama (2009, Afrontamento); Objetos Feitos de Cancro: mulheres, cultura material e doença nas estórias da arte (2015, Almedina); Cancro Sobre Papel: Estórias de oito mulheres Portuguesas entre palavra falada, arte e ciência escrita (2019, Almedina).

CREATIVE WORK: She makes creative scientific illustrations: Creative paintings/ethnographic drawings and amateur photography. In her third monograph, from theory to practice, which mixes social science and visual and plastic art, the researcher made eight creative drawing, painting, and photography projects, giving shape to the stories of cancer in women from her correlative circle, using imagination and metaphor to reinvent the scientific illustration and the ethnographic drawing. As a maker of texts, she is also a lyricist, with works published in three albums, one EP, and four portuguese music collections: 09 Roads (in press); À Sombra de Deus Vol. IV (2012, Braga 2012); Lock Full Version (2010, Cobra Discos); 3Pistas Vol.2 (2009, Antena3 & Edições Valentim de Carvalho/Iplay); EP Lock (2009, Optimus Discos); Novos Talentos FNAC 2009 (2009, Fnac Portugal); Undergod/Underdog (2009, Poison Tree Records, Los Angeles); Acorda! Primeira Compilação de Nova Música Portuguesa em mp3 (2006, Antena3 & Cobra Discos).

RESEARCH INTERESTS: Artistic narratives of oncological resistants in plastic and visual arts; illness, resistance, and activism; Narrative, political, and activist art; visual and material culture of cancer/disease: from image technology and therapeutic objects to prosthetic materials and disposable materialities; amputation and (in)capacity; interactions between art and biomedicine; Body(ies), incorporated knowledge, emoticons, and affections; Autoethnography; (Re)mixtures of knowledge: social science, art, and creative/alternative methodologies (creative writing and creative scientific illustration for research in social sciences: creative, metaphorical, and non-figurative reinventions of painting, photography, and ethnographic drawings); hybrid/alternative ontologies and epistemologies: “the third half of things and knowledge” (Noronha, 2015).