CAA News Today
Alice Ming Wai Jim
posted Nov 30, 2017
STATEMENT
I am currently Associate Professor in Contemporary Art and Concordia University Research Chair in Ethnocultural Art Histories at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I am a founding co-editor, with Alexandra Chang, of the international scholarly journal, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (ADVA). Informed by a hemispheric transnational approach, ADVA is the first academic journal to focus on the scholarship of intersections between visual culture studies and the study of Asian diaspora in the Americas and the myriad ways in which these topics and communities connect with Asia writ large. The journal’s coverage spans the continent (North North America, Canada, US, Latin America, and Mexico) as well as the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean.
As an art historian, curator and cultural organizer in the fields of diasporic and global art histories, media arts, and curatorial studies, I bring to College Art Association over twenty years of academic and professional experience working in multiple sectors in education, the arts, and culture. Focusing primarily on Asian Canadian and African Canadian artists, I have curated exhibitions of over fifty artists of color and Indigenous artists and organized major
scholarly events within academic settings and for the broader arts community in Canada and internationally. I have also been involved in a leadership capacity in several formal partnerships involving international networking and community building initiatives, with a strong commitment to research and social justice.
As the only art historian at Concordia University and in Canada who specializes in contemporary Asian and Asian Canadian art, I am acutely aware of the profound value of the annual CAA conference as a vital means to connect international scholars and practitioners, at all stages of careers and from culturally-diverse communities, on a regular
basis. I have been a member of CAA since 1999; a representative member of the CAA Affiliated Society, the Diasporic Asian Art Network, since 2009; and a research member of the NYU Global Asia/Pacific Art Exchange (GAX) since 2014.
As a board member, I would contribute to conversations on how CAA could work towards increasing the visibility of members from diverse cultural communities and provide support and incentives for new returning members. I would also participate in discussions on how CAA could strengthen international connections and exchanges and expand
critical capacities for art historical scholarship and critical visual culture studies on and by ethnic minority, mixed race, and Indigenous peoples across the Americas and internationally. Finally, I am also interested in ways to foster interdisciplinary, cross-cultural knowledge inquiry and co-production through innovative tools and techniques of digital art history.
Montreal, November 21, 2017