Natasha Bissonauth

Assistant Professor

Availability:

Education:

PhD, History of Art and Visual Studies, Cornell University
MA, Art History, Courtauld Institute of Art, UK
BA, Art History, McGill University

Bio

Dr. Natasha Bissonauth has taught for the Visual Art and Art History department at York University in Toronto and was Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the College of Wooster in Ohio. She is Reviews Editor for the peer-reviewed journal, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas.


Research Interests

Natasha’s research centres queer aesthetics and archival logics across South Asia and Indian Ocean diasporas. She is currently working on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council funded book project that investigates collage and assemblage as a way to suture and severe across histories of immigration and indenture in more material ways. Threading ‘areas’ like South Asia, the Caribbean, and Mauritius, Black and brown seams within the art historical discipline emerge. Natasha’s publications include “Sunil Gupta’s Sun City: An Exercise in Camping Orientalism” (Art Journal), “The Dissent of Play: Lotahs in the Museum” (South Asia) and “Surrealist Returns” (Chitra Ganesh). Their other articles examine the fabular aesthetics of gender and indenture in Kama La Mackerel’s poetry and Renluka Maharaj’s visual practice, and their exhibition catalogue essays discuss the artistic practices of Zanele Muholi and Meera Sethi. Natasha has contributed an exhibition essay for Divya Mehra, winner of the 2022 Sobey Art Award, and their artist interviews, exhibition reviews and book reviews have appeared in Art Asia Pacific, Art India, C Magazine and Women + Performance.

24/25 Courses

Course Name Department Course Code Term
Humanities HUMN 101 26/SP

Description

Continuing with the development of modes of literacy and visual/textual analysis initiated in HUMN 100: Academic Core I, this course will prioritize how representation makes meaning, and how art, media, design, and textual practices participate in a broader social and political sphere. Analysis of both visual images/objects and texts from a variety of historical periods, from the 16th century to the present day, will be emphasized through shared case studies (from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas), keywords, and themes. Throughout, an integrated approach to the humanities will be prioritized, involving the development of critical thinking, writing skills, and class participation and engagement. Combining weekly lectures and smaller breakout seminar sessions for art, design and media, students will be exposed to the specificities of a Humanities curriculum (drawing from Art Media + Design History, Visual Culture, English, Composition and Rhetoric, and Cultural and Media Studies), and to the conceptual and practical skills necessary for further courses in Critical + Cultural Studies, as well as their subsequent studies as a whole. As students persist in building the skill set necessary for critical and contextual inquiry, emphasis will be placed on processes of visual perception, the cultural meaning of images and objects, and their many intersections with knowledge, power, and technology. Throughout, students will be encouraged to situate their own practice in relation to a broader history of representation, in order to articulate their own perspective on what it means to participate in cultural production.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.

Humanities HUMN 101 26/SP

Description

Continuing with the development of modes of literacy and visual/textual analysis initiated in HUMN 100: Academic Core I, this course will prioritize how representation makes meaning, and how art, media, design, and textual practices participate in a broader social and political sphere. Analysis of both visual images/objects and texts from a variety of historical periods, from the 16th century to the present day, will be emphasized through shared case studies (from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas), keywords, and themes. Throughout, an integrated approach to the humanities will be prioritized, involving the development of critical thinking, writing skills, and class participation and engagement. Combining weekly lectures and smaller breakout seminar sessions for art, design and media, students will be exposed to the specificities of a Humanities curriculum (drawing from Art Media + Design History, Visual Culture, English, Composition and Rhetoric, and Cultural and Media Studies), and to the conceptual and practical skills necessary for further courses in Critical + Cultural Studies, as well as their subsequent studies as a whole. As students persist in building the skill set necessary for critical and contextual inquiry, emphasis will be placed on processes of visual perception, the cultural meaning of images and objects, and their many intersections with knowledge, power, and technology. Throughout, students will be encouraged to situate their own practice in relation to a broader history of representation, in order to articulate their own perspective on what it means to participate in cultural production.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.