Ten years following her daughter’s liver transplant, Johnston photographed her daughter, Ceydie, and the other recipient, Freddy, who shared the donor liver with her. In 2022, she received a Canada Council for the Arts grant for the eponymous named project “Freddy and Ceydie”. With it, Johnston was able to actively pursue her intent on raising awareness around organ donation throughout most of Canada with the hope of eventually changing current deceased donor policy from opt-in to opt-out. She has also participated in several photography festivals with this body of work.
In 2022, Johnston received a Risograph Book Publication Residency at the Penumbra Foundation for the images of her family made during covid--“this place I call home whispers fragments of secrets to me”. To emulate the slowed down pace during the periods of lockdown and a hark to the women in her life who darned, sewed, stitched, she bound each book by hand.
Her third body of work, “a butterfly kiss”, was shortlisted and eventually shown at the Photographia Calabria Festival in 2024. It was also recognized by Urbanautica Institute Awards in 2024 for the category “memories and traditions”.
Currently, Johnston lives in Belgium running a bed and breakfast with her husband.
Cince Johnston’s photography practice explores intimate family narratives alongside moments of street documentary, activist-based storytelling for change and an attempted (and ongoing) eco-consciousness in the making of her self-published books. As a visual artist who is also a mother of five, Johnston is concerned about the landscape of the future, and the possible irony that what she creates in her photographic practice could be part of a greater cycle of micro-destructions contributing to the ailing earth. She is constantly asking, “How can I effectively re-use materials, recycle them, and reduce my chemical footprint in my artistic practice as a digital photographer and as a book maker?” With her residency at VUPhoto (Quebec City) in 2024, she has tried to create a more environmentally responsible workflow to her overall photography practice.