Art | The Harriet Tubman Institute

Fanny Teissandier

alexall5 — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 01:56:07 +0000

I am a Master's student in Social Anthropology, focusing my thesis on the activism of Malian undocumented migrants in the Paris region. My work hopes to shed light on migrants' experiences of state violence and practices of resistance. In particular, I will be studying the political discourses that emerge from migrant collectives, which tie contemporary structures of state racism to France's historical and ongoing colonialism on the African continent. I will also pay close attention to how police repression shapes an urban sensorium that targets migrants and racialized people through technologies of violence such as random police checks, surveillance, verbal and physical harm, and even chemicals (tear gas). My analysis of resistance strategies will similarly highlight the multiple sensory dimensions of migrant activism, notably in the artistic expressions of music, dance and urban art.

Jellisa Ricketts

alexall5 — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 01:45:32 +0000

Jellisa Ricketts is currently a master's student in the Humanities with a focus on abolition, spatial theory and the arts.

Fabio Silva Magalhaes

alexall5 — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 01:33:52 +0000

A native from Bahia, Fabio Silva, aka Fabio Cascadura, is a Brazilian-Canadian MA in History at �첥��Ƶ. His MRP is a biographical study of the slave trader and Luso-Brazilian military officer Caetano Mauricio Machado (c.1750–1807) and his business with Bight of Benin.
His interests encompass economy, ethnography and culture related to Western Africa from the era of slavery to nowadays. He is a Research Assistant for different Digital Humanities projects such as Harriet Tubman Virtual Museum, Freedom Narratives, Anti-Slavery in the News (temporary name) and Equiano's World. Additionally, Fabio also has a strong musical background as a composer, singer and musician leading the band Cascadura for more than 20 years.

Joe Konieczny

alexall5 — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 01:29:26 +0000

Joe Konieczny is a writer, educator, and master’s student in the Art History and Visual Culture program at �첥��Ƶ. His research focuses primarily on the cultural history of the Swahili Coast, with a particular emphasis on postcolonial theory and archival epistemology. Joe’s thesis work focuses on emerging philosophies of representation in artist’s run centres on the continent, and the ways in which their affiliate staff and artists engage with a western academy and public that have resisted decolonization. Joe’s other writing has covered diverse topics, reflecting his numerous research interests. His peer-reviewed work includes analysis of the Kenyan-German performance artist Myriam Syowia Kyambi, a series of diatribes against apoliticism in academia, and a look at the curatorial legacy of Okwui Enwezor. Outside of the classroom, Joe works on curriculum at the Korean edu-tech company Ringle, where he is developing a series of advanced English language trainings for use by artistic professionals. He is the president of the Art History Graduate Students Association and the facilitator of a professional art writing group in the Toronto area.

Keywords: Visual culture; Swahili history; artist-run centres

Ola Mohammed

rebsl — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 19:29:22 +0000

Ola Mohammed is an Assistant Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Humanities Department at �첥��Ƶ. Her research is in the areas of Black Studies, Black Popular Music, Sound Studies and Diaspora Studies. She specializes in interdisciplinary research exploring Black cultural production, Black social life and Black being as sites of possibility.

Danielle Howard

rebsl — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 04:41:30 +0000

Dr Danielle A. D. Howard joins AMPD as an assistant professor in the Department of Theatre. She recently taught within the University of California-Los Angeles' School of Theater, Film and Television before coming to �첥��Ƶ. Dr. Howard holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from UCLA and writes at the intersections of race, gender, performance, visual and sonic culture. She is currently working on a manuscript titled Making Moves: Race, Basketball, and Embodied Resistance that spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The project foregrounds Black basketball players’ virtuosic and improvisational movements as oriented towards a kinetic knowledge of freedom and akin to contemporaneous jazz aesthetics. Other recent research includes the speculative lives of nineteenth and twentieth-century Black performers. Dr. Howard’s article, "The (Afro) Future of Henry Box Brown: His-story of Escape(s) through Time and Space" won TDR’s (The Drama Review) Graduate Student Essay Contest Award and appears in their September 2021 issue.

Originally from the United States with training in music, dance, and theatre, Howard's move to Toronto inspires her continued pursuit of her artistic and intellectual curiosity by engaging art-based research practices. She is invested in improving the health and resilience of her communities through their participation in the collective making of artistic expressions with different forms of embodied art. As a certified Social-Emotional Arts (SEA) Facilitator, she hopes to organize community programs that use dance, music, and theatre to facilitate healing, inner peace, and self-expression as well as inform the public on various topics.

Denielle A. Elliott

rebsl — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 17:20:00 +0000

Denielle A. Elliott is Associate Professor at �첥��Ƶ in the Departments of Anthropology and Social Science. She is currently the Graduate Program Director for the Science and Technology Studies program. She is a founding member of the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography. Her research for the large part focuses on arts-based ethnography and the intersections of colonialism, medicine and science, and politics. She has conducted fieldwork in British Columbia (Vancouver's Downtown Eastside on HIV/AIDS, epidemiological surveillance and colonial health) and in Nairobi and Kisumu, Kenya (‘Safari Science’, experimental medicine, scientific infrastructure, and the politics of transnational science).

Her current project entitled "Neurological Imaginaries" explores the sensorial and affective dimensions of traumatic brain injuries.

Her recent book publication, (Routledge 2019), is a collaborative account of immunologist Davy Koech's life's work building bioscientific infrastructure in Kenya and his relationship with former president Daniel arap Moi.

She is co-editor with Anna Harris of the with Somatosphere.

Jamie Robinson

rebsl — Sun, 14 Nov 2021 03:33:22 +0000

Jamie is Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing for �첥��Ƶ’s Department of Theatre. He has been a Toronto-based professional artist since 1997 as an actor, director, producer, teacher, and writer. Upcoming, Jamie will be directing the world premiere of 1184 in collaboration with The Aga Khan Museum in spring 2022. Other director credits include: Madness with Rocks (CBC Gem/Obsidian Theatre), Spanish Golden Age Period �첥��Ƶ (George Brown Theatre), Copy That (Tarragon Theatre), Scotian Journey (Black Theatre Workshop), 365 Days/365 Plays (U of T Mississauga), She Stoops to Conquer and Romeo & Juliet (Guild Festival Theatre, also as Artistic Director), and was Obsidian Theatre’s coordinator for their mentor/apprentice program. Select Theatre acting credits include: Four seasons with the Stratford Festival of Canada, Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure (Canadian Stage in High Park), Risky Phil (Young People’s Theatre. Dora Award Winner, Outstanding Performance), Gas Girls (New Harlem Productions. Dora Award Nomination), Title role in Richard III (Metachroma Theatre. META Award nomination), Comedy of Errors (Western Canada Theatre/Theatre Aquarius), Cake and The Rochdale Project (Theatre Passe Muraille), Medea (Mirvish/MTC), Escape From Happiness (Factory Theatre).

His film/TV acting credits include: Hudson & Rex (Rogers), Private Eyes (Global), In Contempt (BET), Falling Water (Universal), Conviction (ABC), The Expanse (SyFy), Saving Hope (CTV), Murdoch Mysteries (Shaftesbury), The Rick Mercer Report (CBC), Celeste in the City (ABC), and a recurring role in Condor (AT&T). Additionally, Jamie has taught acting for the University of Toronto Mississauga, George Brown College and The Armstrong Acting Studio.