Engaged dialogue with contemporary art research, curation, and scholarship.
Welcome to my space! I'm Charissa, a global contemporary arts scholar, curator, and writer. With a decade of experience in arts research and curation, I'm drawn to projects that honor creative expression and lived experience, and that resonate across communities. I'm committed to making contemporary art accessible, impactful, and relevant. Feel free to have a look around!
Professional Practice
I am a scholar, curator, and writer specializing in contemporary circumpolar Indigenous arts and community-based arts more broadly. My research explores the intersections of contemporary art, exhibition practices, and Indigenous perspectives. My doctoral research examined 50 years of circumpolar art exhibitions, focusing on new curatorial modalities oriented to Arctic Indigenous poetics and borderless sovereignty. My postdoctoral work expanded on this, exploring embodied architectural engagements in contemporary art which inform Indigenous-led futures.
Over the past decade, my practice has naturally woven together research, teaching, and curation, consistently prioritizing cultural sovereignty. With eight years of experience in academic research and museum curation, I've had the privilege of co-curating significant, critically recognized exhibitions that brought this vital art to broader audiences, including the nationally touring Among All These Tundras and Tusarnitut! Music Born of the Cold (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts). My commitment to fostering international dialogue in the circumpolar north is further evidenced by my former role as Managing Editor of the Arctic Arts Summit Digital Platform and part of the editorial team for the Inuit Art Quarterly (2024-25).
My ongoing curatorial interest focuses on spatial engagements in contemporary art, particularly how Indigenous artists create spaces that establish presence, belonging, and agency within institutions. This research delves into how knowledge, history, and home are reimagined and creatively articulated, negotiated, and transformed in institutional space.
Beyond my core specialization, I also find deep satisfaction in writing that translates theoretical concepts into engaging narratives, designing public programs and multisensory engagements that extend exhibition themes into community space, and developing digital strategies that enhance art accessibility within broader community-based and cultural contexts. Throughout all these efforts, I'm committed to building genuine connections between institutions, artists, and diverse publics.
What truly ties all these aspects of my work together, for me, is what I call Engaged Research—an approach that keeps my projects relevant, meaningful, and connected to the social contexts in which art operates and matters.
Focus
Areas
My work spans several connected areas within contemporary art, driven by a commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship and curation. Contemporary Indigenous arts practices (sovereignty, cultural memory) form a significant and informing thread in my approach to other areas, including photography and lens-based media (representation, materiality), performance (embodiment, intervention), and visual culture studies (critical theory, power dynamics). I am particularly interested in the critical reimagining of archival practices and institutional memory (decolonization, community archives) and exploring how collaborative, community-based approaches (ethical engagement, co-creation) can foster transformative change within cultural institutions across diverse contexts. Examples throughout this site illustrate these interconnected interests and my dedication to creating meaningful art experiences that resonate broadly.
Ongoing Engagements
I envision this website as more than a portfolio—an space for active engagement with the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary art. Here, I share my ongoing explorations of emerging artistic sites, works, and practices, and I am excited to connect with fellow scholars, artists, and institutions. Please explore my curatorial projects and publications, and feel free to contact me regarding collaborative opportunities that advance critical conversations in contemporary art.
Notes from my academic journey…
My path began at New York University, where studying Anthropology opened my eyes to the rich intersections between cross-cultural studies and art practices. I became fascinated with how museums function as spaces where knowledge and value are created and exchanged—a curiosity that continues to drive my work today.
For my graduate studies, I joined Concordia University's interuniversity PhD program in Art History—a unique bilingual collaboration with Université de Montréal and Université du Québec à Montréal. Working in both English and French expanded my thinking in ways I hadn't anticipated, allowing me to move between different intellectual traditions and approaches. This cross-institutional environment gave me hands-on opportunities to teach, curate, and collaborate on research projects. The program's emphasis on connecting theory with practice shaped my approach to research and curation in profound ways.
During my Master's, I focused on the artistic practice of Pia Arke, a Greenlandic Inuit and Danish artist whose work with archives and historical materials captivated me. This exploration sparked what would become an ongoing interest in how artists engage with and reimagine personal and collective history and memory—a theme that continues to run through my curatorial work.
My doctoral research at Concordia University provided a foundational understanding of contemporary circumpolar Indigenous arts, focusing on Arctic Indigenous poetics in exhibition spaces—specifically language, storytelling, and textual interventions. I argued that these expanded poetics divert the historic 'Arctic Gaze,' repurposing it as a decolonizing instrument for advocating cultural resurgence and global environmental stewardship. I was fortunate to complete my doctoral studies under the supervision of Dr. Heather Igloliorte, an Inuk scholar who now serves as Canada Excellence Research Chair in Indigenous Arts, Research and Community Engagement at the University of Victoria. Working with her opened doors to the growing field of contemporary circumpolar Indigenous arts scholarship and curatorial practice, where I've had the privilege of contributing to new conversations and approaches.
My postdoctoral research at McGill University (2024-25) explored contemporary art and exhibition spaces as sites of critical architectural engagement, examining how these spaces become experimental sites where Indigenous spatial sovereignty is enacted in unique and varying ways. This research and forthcoming publication investigates how these structures invite embodied forms of participation while challenging flattened identity constructs, creating new spaces for social activation and relational discourse in art. I am particularly interested in exploring how temporary interventions create precedents or map out design principles for permanent Indigenous-led architecture.
As the 2024 Graduate Valedictorian for Concordia University’s Faculty of Fine Arts (Montreal), I was recognized for my community-engaged scholarship that centered collaborative relations, successful cultural exchanges, and the implementation of ethical research and curatorial practices. This journey has shaped my enduring commitment to engaged research and collaborative practices in the contemporary art world.