Student profile
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Ra'anaa Yaminah Ekundayo
Ra’anaa Yaminah Ekundayo is an emerging multimedia visual activist scholar whose practice extends between Tiohtià:ke (Montreal, QC) and N’Swakamok (Sudbury, ON). Their work explores the intersection of art and activism, particularly contemplating the entanglement of Black identity, community, and futurity. Co-founder and Chair of Black Lives Matter Sudbury, Ra’anaa strives for an active decolonization of every facet of their life, supporting calls to defund the police, abolish the prison industrial complex, and for liberation in our lifetime.
They have taken on many leadership roles, as an artist, activist and academic, creating space for people of colour and continually promoting anti-racist practices and social justice. Ra’anaa is impassioned by community-engaged art and the notion that art should be inherently accessible. A Black queer cultural curator, Ra’anaa holds a master’s degree in architecture and is currently pursuing their SSHRC-funded doctorate in art history at Concordia University. Ra’anaa is a 2022 STEPS Public Art CreateSpace Artist-in-Residence, a 2022-23 Barry Pashak Social Justice Graduate Fellow, and a 2023-24 Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism Black Arts Fellow.
Working Thesis Title: Look Up: A Black Cultural Renaissance
Supervisors: Dr. Balbir Singh & Dr. Joana Joachim
Research Interests:
- Art & Activism
- Black Studies
- Afrofuturism
- Public Art
- Architectural Design
- Socio-Political Arts
Teaching:
- Winter 2023 - ARCH-2036EL: Art & Architecture in Canada, McEwen School of Architecture, Sudbury, ON
Teaching Assistantship:
- Fall 2022 - ARTH 379: Postcolonial Theory in Art History, Dr. Reilly Bishop-Stall
Research Assistantship:
- Fall 2023-Present - Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware (McMaster University), The Art of Black Activism: Black Cultural Politics in Northern Turtle Island 2020-Present
- Fall 2021-Spring 2022 - Dr. Alice Jim, Afrofuturism & Black Lives Matter Project (ABLM)
Publications:
- Ekundayo (née Brown), Ra’anaa. [Untitled] Reviewed Work: “As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic: Selections from the Wedge Collection” by Teju Cole, Liz Ikiriko, Mark Sealy, et al. RACAR - salt. For the preservation of Black diasporic visual histories 47, no. 2 (2022): 117-119
Conferences:
- “Unaddressed Identities: Navigating Socio-Political Intersections in Architectural Education.” Care, Restoration, and Redress in the Built Environment, Society for the Study of Architecture (SSAC). Canadian Architecture in the Classroom, Panel Discussion. May 23, 2024.
- “Afro-Renaissance: The Rise of Black Activist Public Art in N’Swakamok.” Reframe, Reclaim, Resist, Art History Graduate Student Association (AHGSA) Conference. RESIST, Panel Discussion. February 17, 2024.
- “Radical Contemporary Visual Culture.” Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC). Afrofuturism, Black Geographies, and Storytelling in Black Artistic Scholarship, Panel Discussion. October 20, 2023.
- “Decolonizing, Dismantling, and Demystifying Design.” The Canadian Architecture Forums on Education, The Canadian Council of University Schools of Architecture. Panel Discussion. May 27, 2022.
Exhibitions:
- Chrysalis, Love is the Antidote - Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism, Tkaronto (Toronto, ON), 2024
- elemental, Looking In / Looking Out - FOFA Gallery, Tiohtià:ke (Montreal, QC), Les courants - Armand-Bombardier Park, Tiohtià:ke (Montreal, QC), Projet: Projections - Galerie de Nouvel-Ontario, N’Swakamok (Sudbury, ON), 2023
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