Emerging Indigenous and Racialized Artists Across Canada Research Assistantship

This research project aims to identify the emerging voices in the Canadian art scene, especially those working with new media and deploying interdisciplinary approaches. Further, the project aims to tackle the lack of representation of racialized and Indigenous artists in the field of Art History. In particular, there are gaps in knowledge and understanding of the themes, methodologies, and contributions of BIPOC artists, and research is needed to fill the gaps. I am particularly interested in the Canadian context because recent social movements such as Black Lives Matter, Idle No More and protests over residential schools have had a positive impact on the art world by generating opportunities for racialized and Indigenous artists to participate in residencies, public speaking events, and exhibit their work in artist-run centers, galleries and museums across Canada. Additionally, a number of artists who have not yet found opportunities to exhibit their work in professional art spaces, have developed their own virtual galleries or use social media such as Instagram to promote their work. By looking at the programming of Canadian art spaces and virtual galleries, this research will identify new and rising artists. Moreover, by researching artists' personal accounts and independent groups in social media, the project will fill the institutional gaps. This research will enable me to include the work of emerging Canadian artists of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds into the Art history curriculum at MacEwan.Outputs:the student will produce an annotated database of emerging racialized and Indigenous artists working in Canada. the student will identify key themes and methods, rather than assuming, as it is often the case, that marginalized artists engage with issues of identity and representation.Outcomes: developing a greater understanding of racialized artists, the themes they engage with, and their contributions to Canadian art history;updating the curriculum of ARTE 304 Theory of Contemporary Art and ARTE 324 History of Interdisciplinary Art at MacEwan;identifying key raising artists that can be included in the exhibition professor Vergara-Vargas will curate in Montreal in May 2024. 

Podcast CCNC & Artful Final Production (Phase #1)

To complete the post production of Artful Conversations Podcast season three. To create the Creative City's Network of Canada second podcast mini-series

The Caregivers

The proposed scholarly activity is the development of exploratory research into systems within art and academia and how they interact with the intersections of being a caregiver/mother, artist, and academic within a Canadian context. I will gather research on this topic via a course of interviews with practicing artist-academic-mothers and collecting existing published research on related themes.

Queer Joy Project Research Assistants for Data Collection and Analysis (Phase 2)

The student on this project will be part of the The Queer Joy project's exploration of what queer and trans epistemologies about consent and queer joy offer the project to end gender-based violence. This contract is for the first part of the project which will involve engagement in data collection and analysis processes and which may include: helping recruit participants, supporting the process of onboarding participants, assisting with the facilitation of data collection, and analyzing data. The goal of the project is to draw upon queer and trans epistemologies to develop more effective gender-based violence prevention education--and specifically consent education--for all youth.