Dr Joana Joachim, PhD

Dr. Joana Joachim is Assistant professor of Black Studies in Art Education, Art History and Social Justice. Her research and teaching interests include Black feminist art histories, Black diasporic art histories, critical museologies, Black Canadian studies, and Canadian slavery studies. Her manuscript in progress,There/Then, Here/Now (working title), examines investigates practices of self-preservation and self-care through the lens of Black livingness and creolization in the visual culture of Black women’s hair and dress in both historical and contemporary art practices. She earned her PhD in the department of Art History and Communication Studies and at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill University working under the supervision of Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson. Dr. Joachim obtained her Master’s degree in Museology from Université de Montréal and her BFA from University of Ottawa. In 2020 she was appointed as a McGill Provostial Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Institutional Histories, Slavery and Colonialism.

Dr. Joachim’s scholarship has appeared in books, journals and magazines including Manuel Mathieu: World Discovered Under Other Skies, History, art and Blackness in Canada, Canadian Journal of History /Annales Canadiennes d’Histoire, RACAR, Mixed Heritage: (Self) Portraits and Identity Negotiation (Americana: e-Journal Of American Studies In Hungary) and C Magazine.

• “In The Silence of An Untimely Glitter Stache” exhibition essay, The Animal Seems To Be Moving, Le Centre d’art et de diffusion Clark, Montreal, 2022. (Read it online)
• “salt. For the preservation of Black diasporic visual histories” RACAR special issue co-edited with Pamela Edmonds. Fall 2022. (Read it online)
• “Créolité Continued: Manuel Mathieu’s A Tropical Onomatopoeia” Manuel Mathieu: World Discovered Under Other Skies (Toronto: The Power Plant, 2022).
• “Hoodies and Regimentals: Black Attire and Access in the Canadian Art Museum” History, art and Blackness in Canada Eds. Julie Crooks, Dominique Fontaine, Silvia Forni (Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum) forthcoming.
• “‘blips in time’ a constellation of Black Canadian artistic tradition from 1970 on” curatorial essay, Blackity, Artexte, Montreal, 2021. (Read it online)
• “Black Gold: A Black Feminist Art History of 1920s Montreal” Canadian Journal of History /Annales Canadiennes d’Histoire special theme issue: “Black Creativity, Expressive Cultures, and Narratives of Space and Place,” (December 2021).
• “Curating, Criticism and Care, or, ‘Showing Up’ as Praxis” C Magazine 145: Criticism, Again (Spring 2020). (Read it online)
• “Syrus Marcus Ware, #BLACKLIVESMATTER, and ‘Artivism’ in Canada” Spaces and Places of Canadian Popular Culture, Ed. Victoria Kannen and Neil Shyminsky. Canadian Scholars Press (2019) 44-55.
• “Speculations”, curatorial essay, Artexte, Montreal, 2019.
• Exhibition Review “From Africa to the Americas : Picasso Face-to-Face, Past and Present and Here We Are Here : Black Canadian Contemporary Art, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts” RACAR: What Is Critical Curating? Vol. 43, no. 2 (2018). (Read it online)
• ” ‘Embodiment and Subjectivity’: Intersectional Black Feminist Curatorial Practices in Canada” RACAR: What Is Critical Curating? Vol. 43, no. 2 (2018). (Read it online)

Issues in Black Canadian Art Histories

In this course, we consider some of the key issues pertaining to Black Canadian art as they relate torace and art history in Canada. We examine the cultural and historical contributions by Black peopleand think critically about the disciplines of museology, curating and art history in Canada. We develop an understanding of Black feminisms as well as harness skills to discuss art from criticalperspectives considering issues around identity, gender, race, sexuality and class.

Issues in Critical Museologies: Pedagogical and Art Historical Perspectives

In this course, we consider some of the key issues related to critical museology and art education inCanada. We examine the cultural and historical stakes of these institutions and think critically aboutthe disciplines of museology, curating and art history. We develop an understanding of museumpractises as well as harness skills to discuss art from critical perspectives considering issues aroundaccessibility, acquisition, documentation, education, curating and how this intersects gender, race,sexuality, disability and class. The goal of this course is to familiarize students with some basic principlesof critical museology, key aspects of Black Canadian history and how to take them up in art education.This course leads students to gain an understanding of key political and museological stakes of Blackart histories in Canada and beyond.