Sophie Paul (she/her, b. 1998) is a designer and writer based across London and Oxfordshire. Her work triangulates between critical theory, trashiness, and eroticisms, with an interest in feminist materiality.
Her MA thesis, Notes Towards a Theory for Iridescence was awarded the Royal College of Art Writing Prize for 2022. Her writing is held at Van Gough House, Poor House Reading Rooms and Tate Archive, and has been published by Pilot Press, Passe Avant, PlusX, BOMB Magazine, Fortified, and others. She has written for live voice with Montez Radio, Repeater, Export Radio, and in association with Pitt Rivers, Oxford. She has exhibited at MAC Birmingham, Lunchtime Gallery, and LUCKY as part of Kunstverein München’s interdisciplinary artists residency on the Ammersee.
Alongside Kaiya Waerea, she is one half of Sticky Fingers Publishing, an intra-dependant publisher based in London, publishing experimental feminist, queer, crip, non-fiction.
︎︎︎ Writing Portfolio
︎︎︎ @theunofficialsoupdragon
︎︎︎ sophieanna15@gmail.com
Sophie Paul (she/her, b. 1998) is a designer and writer based across London and Oxfordshire. Working with experimental writing, collaborative publishing and performance, her interests intersect critical theory, trashiness, and eroticisms. She has written for radio and live voice, run writing and zine making workshops and staged interventionist performances at various sites around London, introducing alternative dialogues around the body as sites for interruption and excess.
Her thesis, Notes Towards a Theory for Iridescence uses the qualities of iridescence to propose an affective re-writing of the ways girlhood and iridescence intra-act. This piece was awarded the 2022 RCA Writing Prize.
Alongside Kaiya Waerea, she is one half of Sticky Fingers Publishing, an intra-dependant publisher based in London, publishing experimental feminist, queer, crip, non-fiction.
She is currently a resident at Peripheral Alliances at the Ammersee, a cooperation between Kunstverein München and Euroboden.
︎︎︎ sophieanna15@gmail.com
︎︎︎ @theunofficialsoupdragon
︎︎︎ RCA2022
Education
2020-22 – MA Writing, Royal College of Art, Pass without Corrections
2017–20 – BA Design, Goldsmiths University of London, 1st Class Hons
2016–17 – Foundation Diploma in Art & Design, Banbury College
2014–16 – Chenderit Sixth Form, A levels: English Lit. (A*), Fine Art (A), History (B)
Professional Experience
2022- present – Abigail Nocon, Access Support
Support Worker for creative studio founder and writer with development and running the studio. Responsibilities include: copywriting & transcribing; concepting; support with task management; research and support with grants; support with emails & communication.
2019- present – Sticky Fingers Publishing, Co-Founder & Editor
Sticky Fingers Publishing is an intra-dependant feminist press based in London, which I run alongside Kaiya Waerea. We are a feminist, queer, disabled led publishers producing work at the intersection of design, academia, art, visual culture and performance. We share all tasks including: writing; editing; designing; production; admin.
stickyfingerspublishing.cargo.site
2023 – Goldsmiths UoL, BA Design, Associate Lecturer
2022 – Literally-no-pleasure, Matthew Richardson at Lucky, München, graphic designer
2022 – Access Consultant, Europa, RCA2022 Visual Identity
2021–22 – Bookseller, Waterstones
2021 – ARC Magazine: Proxyerotics, Art Direction
2021 – Wiped, Export Radio, 2019 – Graphic Designer Hey, Look, Something Is Happening, Goldsmiths BA Design Degree Show, Editorial & Events Commitee
2019 – Oxford Green Print, Studio Assistant
2019 – Something and Son, Studio Assistant
2019 – Warner Records UK, Art Direction Assistant
2019 – Print Club London, Exhibitions Intern
2019 – Tomorrow’s Great Pageant, Post Workers Theatre, Co-Author
2018–19 – DIY Space for London Print Collective, Facilitator
Residencies & Awards
2022 – Lewisham Arthouse Graduate Award, shortlisted (as Sticky Fingers Publishing)
2022 – Peripheral Alliances Residency at the Ammersee with Kunstverein München
2022 – Royal College of Art Writing Prize: Notes Towards a Definition for Iridescence
2021 – Another Gaze Critics Workshop, Open City Documentary Film Festival
2021 – How To Begin, Louise Olwin (online)
Talks & Workshops
2022 – It Will All End in Tears: Writing Rage with Sticky Fingers Publishing, Figs in Wigs Calm Down Dear: Camden People’s Theatre
2022 – Camberwell UAL, MA Graphic Visual Communication, visiting practitioner talk with Sticky Fingers Publishing
2021 – Work is a Verb: Zine making workshop with Sticky Fingers Publishing, ‘Bodies of Work,’ We Are Superfluous
2020 – Postmodern Rom-Com, Re-writing workshops, online
2019 – The Anti-Tour, developed with The Natural History Museum
Selected Writing
2023 – Jumbo’s Last Stand, Sticky Fingers Publishing, forthcoming
2023 – Inventory of Infinitums, in ‘Responses to Untitled (eye with comet) (c.1985) by Paul Thek’, Pilot Press
2023 – The Realest Thing There Is, PlusX, forthcoming
2022 – No Place For Our Quick Stuff, Passe Avant
2022 – Symbio.Scenes: Michelle O’Higgins and Alex Scobie at Cafe Babette, Deptford Culture Review
2022 – Food Diary, Fortified Gazette
2022 – My Mother Mitochondrion, Wild Stone: a journal with RCA Sculpture Students and Poor House Reading Rooms. Held in private and public collections including Poor House Reading Rooms, Van Gough House London, and Tate Archive
2021 – BODYMOVIEMACHINE, ARC Magazine: Proxyerotics
2021 – BOMB Retrospective: Cookie Mueller Revisited by Sticky Fingers Publishing, BOMB Magazine
2021 – Night Slugs, The Pluralist
2020 – Treatise on Mould, ‘Ending, Stopping, Closing,’ Scrawl Society
2020 – Script for a Postmodern Rom-Com, FDBNHLLLTTFGROUNDLESSNESS
Exhibitions
2022 – Peripheral Alliances, group show at Lucky, München
2022 – Moments of Clarity, solo show at Lucky, München
2022 – I’M BORED OF READING I WANT REVENGE, Sticky Fingers Publishing, Lunchtime Gallery (Glasgow)
2019 – Great Unrecorded History | Art Show, University of Birmingham Gender and Sexuality Liberation Associations, MAC Birmingham
Selected Sound
2022 – present – Sticky Fingers In Your Ears, periodical slot with Repeater Radio
2021 – Just Speak Nearby, featured partnership with Pitt Rivers Museum Oxford
2020 – Scrawl Sound, ‘Ending, Stopping Closing’ Extract from Treatise on Mould, Export Radio
Selected Publishing with Sticky Fingers
2023 – A Masturbatory Reader, foreword by Emily Pope
2022 – Pagemasters Print Fair
2022 – Miss Read Berlin Art Book Fair
2022 – Memoirs of a Child Plot Hole: How to Escape Yourself Without Even Trying, by Evelyn Wh-ell
2022 – Notes on Intra-Dependant Publishing
2022 – Montez Press x Babeworld, Interjection Calendar 7 launch & performance night
2020- present – Sticky Fingers In Your Letterbox, Monthy Mail-out
2020- present – Dead Lovers, (Various authors)
2019- present – Artist Self Publishing (ASP) Fair 5-7
2019- present – FDBNHLLLTTFPublications (Various authors)
Research
feminist new materialism, poststructural feminism, pedagogy, pop culture, philosophy, embodiment, materiality, texture, eroticisms, trashiness, access, publishing histories, queer phenomenology, slits & wounds, futurity
Creative Interests
creative non-fiction, short story, cultural criticism, review, zine making, self publishing, image making, distro, radio, live voice, performance
Skills
publication design & layout, risograph printing, graphic design, copywriting, editing, reviewing, workshop facilitation, consultancy, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, Zoom
References available on request
2020-22 – MA Writing, Royal College of Art, Pass without Corrections
2017–20 – BA Design, Goldsmiths University of London, 1st Class Hons
2016–17 – Foundation Diploma in Art & Design, Banbury College
2014–16 – Chenderit Sixth Form, A levels: English Lit. (A*), Fine Art (A), History (B)
Professional Experience
2022- present – Abigail Nocon, Access Support
Support Worker for creative studio founder and writer with development and running the studio. Responsibilities include: copywriting & transcribing; concepting; support with task management; research and support with grants; support with emails & communication.
2019- present – Sticky Fingers Publishing, Co-Founder & Editor
Sticky Fingers Publishing is an intra-dependant feminist press based in London, which I run alongside Kaiya Waerea. We are a feminist, queer, disabled led publishers producing work at the intersection of design, academia, art, visual culture and performance. We share all tasks including: writing; editing; designing; production; admin.
stickyfingerspublishing.cargo.site
2023 – Goldsmiths UoL, BA Design, Associate Lecturer
2022 – Literally-no-pleasure, Matthew Richardson at Lucky, München, graphic designer
2022 – Access Consultant, Europa, RCA2022 Visual Identity
2021–22 – Bookseller, Waterstones
2021 – ARC Magazine: Proxyerotics, Art Direction
2021 – Wiped, Export Radio, 2019 – Graphic Designer Hey, Look, Something Is Happening, Goldsmiths BA Design Degree Show, Editorial & Events Commitee
2019 – Oxford Green Print, Studio Assistant
2019 – Something and Son, Studio Assistant
2019 – Warner Records UK, Art Direction Assistant
2019 – Print Club London, Exhibitions Intern
2019 – Tomorrow’s Great Pageant, Post Workers Theatre, Co-Author
2018–19 – DIY Space for London Print Collective, Facilitator
Residencies & Awards
2022 – Lewisham Arthouse Graduate Award, shortlisted (as Sticky Fingers Publishing)
2022 – Peripheral Alliances Residency at the Ammersee with Kunstverein München
2022 – Royal College of Art Writing Prize: Notes Towards a Definition for Iridescence
2021 – Another Gaze Critics Workshop, Open City Documentary Film Festival
2021 – How To Begin, Louise Olwin (online)
Talks & Workshops
2022 – It Will All End in Tears: Writing Rage with Sticky Fingers Publishing, Figs in Wigs Calm Down Dear: Camden People’s Theatre
2022 – Camberwell UAL, MA Graphic Visual Communication, visiting practitioner talk with Sticky Fingers Publishing
2021 – Work is a Verb: Zine making workshop with Sticky Fingers Publishing, ‘Bodies of Work,’ We Are Superfluous
2020 – Postmodern Rom-Com, Re-writing workshops, online
2019 – The Anti-Tour, developed with The Natural History Museum
Selected Writing
2023 – Jumbo’s Last Stand, Sticky Fingers Publishing, forthcoming
2023 – Inventory of Infinitums, in ‘Responses to Untitled (eye with comet) (c.1985) by Paul Thek’, Pilot Press
2023 – The Realest Thing There Is, PlusX, forthcoming
2022 – No Place For Our Quick Stuff, Passe Avant
2022 – Symbio.Scenes: Michelle O’Higgins and Alex Scobie at Cafe Babette, Deptford Culture Review
2022 – Food Diary, Fortified Gazette
2022 – My Mother Mitochondrion, Wild Stone: a journal with RCA Sculpture Students and Poor House Reading Rooms. Held in private and public collections including Poor House Reading Rooms, Van Gough House London, and Tate Archive
2021 – BODYMOVIEMACHINE, ARC Magazine: Proxyerotics
2021 – BOMB Retrospective: Cookie Mueller Revisited by Sticky Fingers Publishing, BOMB Magazine
2021 – Night Slugs, The Pluralist
2020 – Treatise on Mould, ‘Ending, Stopping, Closing,’ Scrawl Society
2020 – Script for a Postmodern Rom-Com, FDBNHLLLTTFGROUNDLESSNESS
Exhibitions
2022 – Peripheral Alliances, group show at Lucky, München
2022 – Moments of Clarity, solo show at Lucky, München
2022 – I’M BORED OF READING I WANT REVENGE, Sticky Fingers Publishing, Lunchtime Gallery (Glasgow)
2019 – Great Unrecorded History | Art Show, University of Birmingham Gender and Sexuality Liberation Associations, MAC Birmingham
Selected Sound
2022 – present – Sticky Fingers In Your Ears, periodical slot with Repeater Radio
2021 – Just Speak Nearby, featured partnership with Pitt Rivers Museum Oxford
2020 – Scrawl Sound, ‘Ending, Stopping Closing’ Extract from Treatise on Mould, Export Radio
Selected Publishing with Sticky Fingers
2023 – A Masturbatory Reader, foreword by Emily Pope
2022 – Pagemasters Print Fair
2022 – Miss Read Berlin Art Book Fair
2022 – Memoirs of a Child Plot Hole: How to Escape Yourself Without Even Trying, by Evelyn Wh-ell
2022 – Notes on Intra-Dependant Publishing
2022 – Montez Press x Babeworld, Interjection Calendar 7 launch & performance night
2020- present – Sticky Fingers In Your Letterbox, Monthy Mail-out
2020- present – Dead Lovers, (Various authors)
2019- present – Artist Self Publishing (ASP) Fair 5-7
2019- present – FDBNHLLLTTFPublications (Various authors)
Research
feminist new materialism, poststructural feminism, pedagogy, pop culture, philosophy, embodiment, materiality, texture, eroticisms, trashiness, access, publishing histories, queer phenomenology, slits & wounds, futurity
Creative Interests
creative non-fiction, short story, cultural criticism, review, zine making, self publishing, image making, distro, radio, live voice, performance
Skills
publication design & layout, risograph printing, graphic design, copywriting, editing, reviewing, workshop facilitation, consultancy, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, Zoom
References available on request