Congratulations to Jessica Jacobson-Konefall (PhD 2015, Queen’s University) on completing her SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto (2017-19) with Professor Mark Cheetham. Her new position of Instructor at the University of Manitoba, cross appointed between the School of Art and Department of Native Studies, begins in September 2019.
Jessica’s main research areas include eco art, critical theory, Indigenous and Canadian contemporary art. Jessica is working on a book manuscript, Being Here in a Good Way: The Labour of Care in Archives and Art, and her article “Here: our Alienation and Transformative Agencies,” was published in August 2019 by grunt gallery’s recent book Wordless on the performance art of Anishinaabe artist Rebeca Belmore. She has forthcoming chapters in anthologies with McGill-Queen’s UP on computing arts in Canada and performance and politics in the Americas.
She is a Collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant Archive/Counter-Archive out of York University; her case study looks at birchbark scrolls as archival and living documents of Anishinaabe sovereignty. With Anishinaabe scholar Angelina Mcleod (Shoal Lake 40 First Nation) she is working on a book —blending history, theory, visual culture, art, lived experience, and activism— focused on orienting Anishinaabe/settler relationships “in a good way.”
Please join us in congratulating Jessica on her new position at the University of Manitoba!