Dr. Alice Ming Wai Jim, PhD

Land Acknowledgement

I acknowledge that Concordia Universityis located on unceded Indigenous lands.The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation isrecognized as the custodians of the lands and waters we now callMontreal. Tiohtiá:ke (Montreal)is historically known as a gatheringplace for many First Nations. Today, it is home to a diversepopulation of Indigenous and other peoples. We respect thecontinued connections with the past, present and future in ourongoing relationships with Indigenous and other peoples within theMontreal community. 

Je reconnais que l’Université Concordia est située en territoireautochtone non cédé et que la nation Kanien’kehá:ka est la gardiennedes terres et des eaux formant aujourd’hui Montréal. Le nom d’origine dece territoire est Tiohtiá:ke. Celui-ci est historiquement connu commeun lieu de rassemblement pour de nombreuses Premières Nations.Aujourd’hui, la ville accueille une populationdiversifiée d’Autochtones et de gens d’autres origines. L’UniversitéConcordia respecte les liens passés, actuels et futurs desPremières Nations avec ces terres et en tient compte dans sesrelations continues avec les Autochtones et les autres membres dela communauté montréalaise.

Research Chair Biography

As Concordia University Research Chair (CURC, Tier 1) in Critical Curatorial Studies and Decolonizing Art Institutions, Dr Alice Ming Wai Jim and her team will examine the impact of recent social justice movements, decolonizing methodologies, and the new field of critical race museology on the role of the curator. Professor of Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History and previously Tier 2 CURC in Ethnocultural Art Histories, 2017–2022, Dr Jim has galvanized a new generation of students and scholars in the study of ethnocultural art histories that extends to curatorial studies and critical race museology. Her research on diasporic art in Canada and contemporary Asian art has generated new dialogues within and between the fields of ethnocultural and global art histories, critical race theory, media arts, and curatorial studies. Her current SSHRC-funded curated oral histories project, Afrofuturism and Black Lives Matter in the Canadian art scene, is part of a larger examination of the convergence of Indigenous and Afro-Asian futurism in contemporary art. Prior to her appointment at Concordia, Dr Jim was Curator of the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Centre A where she curated the group exhibition and symposium Redress Express: Chinese Restaurants and the Head Tax Issue in Canadian Art about the era before and during the Chinese Exclusion Act (1923–1947) which was passed 100 years ago this year (2023). She also convened the international 2004 conference and exhibition Mutations<>Connections: Cultural (Ex)Changes in Asian Diasporas, whose 20th anniversary will be marked and revisited as part of the new CURC’s research activities to interrogate global Asian diasporic art and curatorial developments. Dr Jim is also founding co-editor-in-chief of the international journal Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (ADVA), published by Brill (Leiden, NL) in association with the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art (Concordia University) and the Asian/Pacific/American Institute (New York University). She is a member of the College of New Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada and recipient in 2022 of UAAC’s inaugural Award for the advancement of equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.

Extended Biography

Since 2000, Dr Jim has curated exhibitions of over sixty artists of colour and Indigenous artists and organized major scholarly events within academic settings and for the broader arts community in Canada and internationally. Co-investigator of the SSHRC and FQRSC-funded Trans-Atlantic Platform: Social Innovation project, Worlding Public Cultures (2020–2023), she organized a team of Montreal faculty and students from Concordia, UQAM and UdM to participate in international academies in Ottawa, Amsterdam, London, Heidelberg, and Montreal, convening WPC 2023, Worlding Tiohtià:ke/ Montreal: Bridging Knowledges, Practices, and Beings to critically examine the ways in which global, transnational and transcultural public narratives are being represented in universities, museums, and other spaces of art and culture. 

She is also a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant project, Thinking Through the Museum: A Partnership Approach to Curating Difficult Knowledge in Public (2021–2028), in the Critical Race Museology Cluster. 

In 2022, Jim co-organized the Pacific Basin Institute’s Decolonizing Art and Curatorial Practice Lecture Series and was a core member of Rutgers University’s’ Decolonizing Curatorial and Museum Studies and Public Humanities Project. A core scholar of the NYU Global Asia/Pacific Art Exchange (GAX) since 2014, she co-convened GAX 2019 Tiohtiá:ke (Montreal): Asian Indigenous Relations in Contemporary Art, which brought together sixty Asian diasporic and Indigenous researchers, artists, and students from Samoa, Hawaii, Australia, across Canada, and the US to investigate the topic of curating hospitality and care discourses in contemporary art.

In 2018, she coedited the special issue “What is Critical Curating?” for RACAR with Dr Marie Fraser. In 2019, Jim was a visiting professor for Summer Institute 2019: Future Commons at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong and co-chair of the Artistic Committee (Exhibition) for ISEA2020 Montreal: Why Sentience? (International Symposium on Electronic Art).

Jim founded EAHR (Ethnocultural Art Histories Research Group) in 2011 and is founding member of the EAHR|Media Working Group 2019-2022, and the South South: Critiques of Global South Working Group 2022-2024, both in affiliation with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture at Concordia. Jim is also Adjunct Professor in Graduate Studies at OCAD University, Toronto (2021-2024).

Jim is recipient of a 2022 Academic Leadership Award and was inducted into the 2020 Provost Circle of Distinction, Concordia University.

Alice (she/her) is a second-generation Anglophone Chinese Canadian racialized visible minority born and raised in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Undergraduate Courses

• ARTH 379 Postcolonial Theory and Art - Special Topic: Ethnic Futurisms and Contemporary Art
• ARTH 379 Postcolonial Theory and Art - Special Topic: Migration and Mobility in Contemporary Art
• ARTH 389 Issues in Ethnocultural Art Histories - Special Topic: Race, Citizenship and Art in Canada
• ARTH 358 Studies in the History of Media Art - Special Topic: Fake News & Contemporary Art
• ARTH 358 Studies in the History of Media Art - Special Topic: Screen-based Art and News Media
• ARTH 368 Studies in Contemporary Art and Architecture - Special Topic: The Packaging of Contemporary Art
• ARTH 358 Studies in the History of Media Art - Special Topic: Screen Culture
• ARTH 358 Studies in the History of Media Art - Special Topic: Remix Culture
• ARTH 450 Advanced Undergraduate Seminar - Special Topic: Contemporary Asian Art in a Global Context
• ARTH 353 Technology and Contemporary Art

Graduate Seminars

• ARTH 809 Interuniversity Doctoral Program Seminar - Methodologies - Global Art Histories (Winter 2022)
• ARTH 615 Aspects of Postcolonial Theory in Art and Art History - Afrofuturism in Canadian Art
• ARTH 615 Aspects of Postcolonial Theory in Art and Art History - The Art of Migration and Diaspora in Canada
• ARTH 642 Aspects of Media and New Media -  Networked Art Practices
• ARTH 615 Aspects of Postcolonial Theory in Art and Art History - Historiography of Contemporary Asian Art and Asian Diasporic Art
• ARTH 648 Aspects of Museum Studies: Theories - Contemporary Exhibition Practice in the International Arena
• ARTH 648 Aspects of Museum and Curatorial Studies: International Art Exhibitions (Fall 2019)
• ARTH 649 Aspects of Museum Studies: Practice - Curating the 'Other' (Fall 2008)/Contemporary Exhibition Practice in the International Arena (BNL MTL) (Fall 2014)/ Curating Global Asian Indigenous (Fall 2018, Fall 2022)
• ARTH 655 MA Thesis Seminar (Graduate Pro-Seminar) (2023-24, Fall 2024)

Graduate Supervision

Documentation to provide with your request for reference letters

Below is list of what I typically need as info in order to provide STRONG reference letters requested by students. Once you have emailed these documents, I will email you confirmation on whether or not I will provide you with a reference letter. 

You may use this as a guideline for asking other professors. 

A useful article online is: http://www.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/career-advice-article/how-to-ask-for-a-reference-letter/

In general, students who would like to request that I write a letter of recommendation or act as a reference need to: 1) have received minimum an A- in a course with me; and 2) submit the following materials to me at least four weeks in advance of the deadline:

1. a copy of your cv;

2. an unofficial copy of your transcript(s), especially if I have to speakto your academic performance;

3. a list of courses (and year and session enrolled) you have taken withme, and final grades obtained; justify grade in comparison to your evaluationof the course. Justify inconsistences in academic performance, if applicable.

4. a copy of 1-2 research papers or articles that you think it a goodsample of your work, with the grade or grading rubric (preferably ones youwrote for me, but also relevant to the application in question);

5. a copy of the cover letter or statement of intent/research proposal youwill submit to the internship/job/graduate program/fellowship, and any otherrelevant information about why you deserve this position/award;

6. a list of the addresses [preferably email not snail mail if the latter can be avoided] and dates by which the letter(s) must be received and/orURLs for electronic submission – I do not pay for expedited mail/courierservices (all hard copies will be mailed through regular mail).

7. any forms that need to be filled out (make sure you complete anynecessary sections and sign if required) or provide complete personal info thatI need to fill out your online forms (i.e. student numbers, addresses, telephonenumbers, birth dates, etc.) otherwise they will be left blank.

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It’s always good to follow up with a reminder the week before.

My contact info: