Andrea Fatona is a Canadian independent

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

and scholar. She is an associate professor at

OCAD University Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD U, is a public university, public art school, art university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its main campus is located within Toronto's Grange Park (neighbourh ...

, where her areas of expertise includes black, contemporary art and curatorial studies.

Early life

In 2011, Fatona received her PhD from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

(

OISE Oise ( ; ; ) is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise. Inhabitants of the department are called ''Oisiens'' () or ''Isariens'', after the Latin name for the river, Isara. It had a population of 829,419 in 2019.< ...

). Titled "Where Outreach Meets Outrage: Racial Equity policy formation at the Canada Council for the Arts (1989-1999)", her dissertation examined policy and practice regarding the racial equity at the

Canada Council for the Arts The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to foster and promote the study a ...

. Fatona was a member of the Canada Council Equity advisory committee for the Visual Arts section between 2003 and 2005.

Career

Fatona held curatorial positions at Artspeak in Vancouver, the Art Gallery of Ottawa, Artspace Peterborough, and Video In (Vancouver). She curated a show of the work of Winsom, a Belize-based Canadian and Maroon artist, at the gallery. Her research contributed to the

Hogan's Alley, Vancouver Hogan's Alley was the local, unofficial name for Park Lane, an alley that ran through the southwestern corner of Strathcona in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The alley was located between Union and Prior (north–south) and ran from approxim ...

memorial project that memorializes Black cultural history in Vancouver.

CBC Arts CBC Arts () is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that creates and curates written articles, short documentaries, non-fiction series and interactive projects that represent the excellence of Canada's diverse artistic communitie ...

placed Fatona at the forefront of the Black cultural movement in Canada. In 2015, Fatona led the

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC; , CRSH), often colloquially pronounced 'shirk' (), is a Canadian federal research-funding agency that promotes and supports post-secondary research and training in the humani ...

-funded research project: ''State of Blackness: From Production to Presentation Conference''. The project addressed art education and Blackness in Canadian art curricula. In 2020, Fatona obtained a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Canadian Black Diasporic Cultural Production, which aims to make visible and provide access to the works of contemporary Black artists, craftspeople, curators, and critics in Canada. Led by Andrea Fatona, on March 18, 2021,

inaugurated its Center for the Study of the Black Canadian Diaspora.

Curated exhibitions

Co-curator, Land Marks (touring exhibition Chatham, Windsor, Peterborough). The Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, Ont. (originating gallery), 2013 -2015. Curator, Edna Paterson-Petty: African-American Quilts. The

Ottawa Art Gallery The Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG) is a municipal gallery in Ottawa, Ontario that opened in 1988 at Arts Court. The gallery has a permanent collection of over one thousand works, houses the City of Ottawa-owned Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, and ...

, Ottawa, ON, 2011. Co-curator, Alex Wyse- Wyse Works: Exposing the Inevitable. The Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON, 2011. Initiator and coordinator of Will Work for Food, a community arts project involving Sandy Hill Community Health Centre and Operation Come Home as primary community partners. The Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON, 2010. Curator, Avaaz. Sound installation by Dipna Horra. The Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON, 2010. Curator, Intersections. Paintings by artist-programmer Eric Sze-Lang. The Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON, 2010. Curator, Duncan de Kergommeaux: These Are the Marks I Make "a survey exhibition of painter Duncan de Kergommeaux that spans 50 years of the artist's life. The Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ont.,

Museum London Museum London is an art and history museum located in London, Ontario, Canada. It is located near the forks of the Thames River. It started its operations in 1940 with London Public Library and amalgamated with London Regional Art Gallery and Lon ...

, 2010. Curator, Fibred Optics, group exhibition that explores the multi-sensorial nature of visual narration and perception. Frances Dorsey, Jerome Havre,

Ed Pien Ed Pien (born February 23, 1958) is a Canadian contemporary artist, known for his drawings and large-scale drawing-based installations inspired by multiple sources (Inuit as well as European and Chinese) and traditions, printmaking, paper cuts a ...

and Michele Provost. The Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON, 2009 and Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, B.C. in 2011. Curator in collaboration with Deanna Bowen, Reading the Image: Poetics of the Black Diaspora, group, national touring exhibition "Deanna Bowen,

Maud Sulter Maud Sulter (19 September 1960 – 27 February 2008) was a Scottish contemporary fine artist, photographer, writer, educator, feminist, cultural historian, and curator of Ghanaian heritage. She began her career as a writer and poet, becoming a v ...

Christopher Cozier Cristopher Cozier (born 1959, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) is a multidisciplinary, contemporary artist and cultural critic based in Trinidad. He left Trinidad to study in the United States in 1983, and has been exhibiting in and outside of ...

and Michael Fernandes - that explores issues pertaining to diasporic movement and the relationship of African peoples to the project of modernity. Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, Ont. (originating gallery);

Robert McLaughlin Gallery The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a public art gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public art gallery in the Regional Municipality of Durham, of which Oshawa is a part. The gallery houses a significant collection of Canadian conte ...

, Oshawa, Ontario;

Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Yukon Art Centre, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, 2006. Curator, The Attack of the Sandwich Man, solo exhibition by

Chris Cozier Chris is a short form of various names including Christopher, Christian, Christina, and Christine. Chris is also used as a name in its own right, however it is not as common. People with the given name * Chris Abani (born 1966), Nigerian author ...

(Trinidad), video collaboration with

Richard Fung Richard Fung (born 1954) is a video artist, writer, public intellectual and theorist who currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. He was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and is openly gay. Fung was a professor at OCAD University. He earne ...

; addresses issues related to nation- making, culture, the politics of gender and the post- colonial Caribbean.

A Space Gallery A Space is a Canadian artist-run centre located in Toronto, Ontario Background The gallery originated as the Nightingale Arts Council in 1970, and was founded in 1971. The name ''A Space Gallery'' was first used when the gallery established itse ...

, Toronto, ON, 2001.

Bibliography

* 2018 Book chapter, "Claiming Space: The Development of Black Canadian Cultural Activism of the 1980s and 1990s" Ed. Nelson, Charmaine A. ''Towards an African Canadian Art History Art, Memory, Resistance.'' Concord, Ont.: Captus Press Inc., 2018. * 2015 Catalogue essay, Objects, Histories, and Memory, in conjunction with the exhibition, “Mining Memory:

Sylvia D. Hamilton Sylvia D. Hamilton is a Canadian filmmaker, writer, poet, and artist. Based in Grand Pre, Nova Scotia, her work explores the lives and experiences of people of African descent. Her special focus is on African Nova Scotians, and especially women ...

”, Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, ON * 2013 Book chapter, "Arts funding, the State, and Canadian Nation-making" in Critical Canadian Studies, eds, Lynn Caldwell, Darryl Leroux, Carianne Leung. NS: Fernwood Press * 2011 Interview with Duncan de Kergommeaux in catalogue These Are the Marks I make: Duncan de Kergommeaux, The

and

co- publication * 2010 Catalogue essay, Network Installations: Marie-Josée Laframboise, Musée d'art de Joliette, The Ottawa Art Gallery and

Southern Alberta Art Gallery The Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin (or SAAG) is a contemporary art gallery located in downtown Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. It has three gallery spaces and a gift shop. History In 1974, local residents formed the Sout ...

co-publication * 2009 Catalogue essay, Fibred Optics exhibition, The Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON * 2007 "Bring It Back: Thinking the Ethno-Politics of Identity Again" with Aruna Srivastava and

Rinaldo Walcott Rinaldo Wayne Walcott (born 1965) is a Canadian academic and writer. Work Walcott published ''Black Like Who?'' in 1997, coming out of research related to his PhD studies which focused on, in Walcott's own words, "questions of popular culture ...

, FUSE Magazine, Vol.30, #4 2006 Catalogue essay, Reading the Image: Poetics of the Black Diaspora, Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, ON. * 2006 "In the Presence of Absence: Invisibility, Black Canadian History, and Melinda Mollineaux's Pinhole Photography",

Canadian Journal of Communication The ''Canadian Journal of Communication'' publishes Canadian research and scholarship in the field of communication studies, first published in 1974. "In pursuing this objective, particular attention is paid to research that has a distinctive C ...

, Vol. 31, 227-238 * 2005 "Social Justice Education through a School-Community Partnership in Media Arts–, Orbit: OISE/UT's Magazine for Schools, Vol. 35, No. 2 2005 –In the Presence of Absence: My response to re- presentations of an Emancipation Day picnic–
Small Axe: Journal of Caribbean Criticism
(on-line edition) * 2002 Contributor, 13 Conversations about art and cultural race politics, eds. Monika Kin Gagnon and Richard Fung. Artexte Editions, Montreal.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fatona, Andrea Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Academic staff of OCAD University Canadian curators Canadian women curators