MICRO-BIO

• I'm an exhibition maker, educator and PhD candidate in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, UK, currently living in Oslo, Norway.

  I'm an exhibition maker, educator and PhD candidate in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, UK, currently living in Oslo, Norway. Less

EXPERIENCE

• University of Oslo

  • Visiting PhD Researcher
  • Centre for Museum Studies
  • Present

• Centre for Museum Studies, University of Oslo

  • Visiting Researcher
  • January 2020 to Present

• University of Leicester

  • PhD Researcher
  • School of Museum Studies
  • September 2015 to Present

EDUCATION

• University of Illinois at Chicago

  • M.A. Art History
  • August 1999 to May 2005

  My graduate research in art history entailed extensive fieldwork in Kenya, where I interviewed both creators and consumers of 'jua kali art' to analyze the cultural and socioeconomic dynamics of this emerging genre of contemporary art. 'Jua kali' is a Swahili phrase that means 'hot sun' and is used to refer to artists and workers of the informal sector. Since the term was first coined in the 1970s, jua kali has dominated policy discussions as a viable solution to poverty and unemployment, but it is only recently that the aesthetic merits and cultural significance of jua kali artwork has begun to be considered by Western scholars. My MA thesis shows that despite occupying the margins of formal art venues in Kenya, informal sector artists are far from marginally creative. In its active cross-pollination of artistic ideas, jua kali art is a metaphor for the complex interethnic relations of postcolonial Africa and the cultural exchanges that occur between Western tourists and non-Western artists.

• University of Illinois at Chicago

  • M.A. English (Language, Literacy and Rhetoric)
  • August 1996 to July 1998

Links

• Art Matters