Dr Janna Graham
Staff details
Dr Janna Graham is Senior Lecturer in Visual Cultures and Programme Leader of the BA in Curating. Her work examines the aural, visual and micropolitical dimensions of urban dispossession and resistance, and studies how legacies of colonial administration underpin neoliberal subjectivities, institutions and modes of publicity. Originally trained as a geographer, Graham’s work is informed by spatial theory, institutional analysis, sound investigation, curatorial practice, cultural studies and feminism.
As a curator associated with the ‘educational turn in art’ she has developed projects at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Whitechapel Gallery, Serpentine Galleries, the New Museum, and Documenta.
Her publications have featured in journals, edited collections and exhibition catalogues including the Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Organisation, Art and the Public Sphere.
Graham is a member of the sound and political art collective Ultra-red.
Academic qualifications
- Phd Visual Cultures. Title - Thinking with Conditions: From Public Programming to Radical Pedagogy in and out of Contemporary Art 2018
- MA, Cultural Studies, Leeds University 1999
- BA (Hons) Geography, Queen's University, Canada 1997
Teaching and Supervision
Graham has supervised students working on genealogies of Institutional Analysis and Institutional Pedagogy (Foucault, Fanon, Guattari, Tosquelles, Querrien), colonial legacies in institutions and de-institutionalisation processes, the production of Black / Queer space, feminist responses to outsourcing, the visual cultures of urban crisis, group work and collectivity, insurgent learning in the Americas, listening in social movements, legacies of colonialism in museums and museological invention, eco-pedagogies and pedagogies of the far right in Brazil.
- BA Art History
- MA Contemporary Art Theory
- BA Curating
- Phd Visual Culture
Publications and research outputs
Book
Forkert, Kirsten; Oliveri, Federico; Bhattacharyya, Gargi and Graham, Janna. 2020. How Media and Conflicts Make Migrants. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526138118
Edited Book
Precarious Workers Brigade, (PWB); Baskakova, Tatiana; Bradfield, Marsha; Graziano, Valeria; Eysler, Adriana; Hope, Sophie; Kern, Margareta; Farinati, Lucia; Firth, Claudia; Mirza, Noor; Weghmann, Vera; Graham, Janna and Kelly, Susan, eds. 2017. Training for Exploitation?: Politicising Employability and Reclaiming Education by Precarious Workers Brigade. Foreword: Silvia Federici. London: Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press. ISBN 9780615590110
Book Section
Graham, Janna. 2020. ‘Techniques for Living Otherwise’: Naming, Composing and Instituting Otherwise. In: Marina Garcés; Janna Graham; val flores; Concha Fernández Martorell and Jordi Solé Blanch, eds. Pedagogías y emancipación. Barcelona: Arcadia MACBA, pp. 49-77. ISBN 9788494992476
Graham, Janna. 2017. Grammars of the Possible: Moving Beyond Binaries of Representation and Non-Representation in Gallery Education. In: Carmen Mörsch; Sigrid Schade and Sophie Vögele, eds. Representing Art Education: On the Representation of Pedagogical Work in the Art Field: . Vienna: Zaglossus, pp. 369-408. ISBN 9783902902580
Graham, Janna. 2016. The Anatomy of an AND. In: Carmen Mörsch; Angeli Sachs and Thomas Sieber, eds. Contemporary Curating and Museum Education. Bielefeld: transcript-Verlag, pp. 187-202. ISBN 9783837630800
Article
Graham, Janna and Papadopoulos, Dimitris. 2023. Organizing the precarious: Autonomous work, real democracy and ecological precarity. Organization, 30(4), pp. 649-667. ISSN 1350-5084
Mpondaa, Victoria and Graham, Janna. 2022. Azamba publics: containment, care and curating in the “expanded private sphere”. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 14(1), 2063704. ISSN 2000-4214
Hamza, Husseina; Jacca, Joyce; Jarrett, Tracey and Graham, Janna. 2021. Instituting and Organising “From the Pockets”: A Field Report from a Museum in the Making. On Curating(52), pp. 71-83. ISSN 2673-2955
Faramelli, Anthony and Graham, Janna. 2020. From Distant Horizon to the ‘Uncoercive Rearrangement of Desire’: Institutional Pedagogy and Collaborative Learning in an Instance of Arts and Curatorial Education. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 39(4), pp. 841-854. ISSN 1476-8062
Graham, Janna. 2018. ‘Where are we when we think?’ Space, time and emancipatory education in galleries. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 37(1), pp. 21-39. ISSN 0260-1370
Graham, Janna. 2017. ‘A strong curatorial vision for the neighbourhood’: Countering the diplomatic condition of the arts in urban neighbourhoods. Art & the Public Sphere, 6(1-2), pp. 33-49. ISSN 2042-793X
Graham, Janna. 2017. Dos relatos sobre un «nosotros» Malestar en las fronteras entre arte, educación e investigación. Errata: Revista de Artes Visuales(16), pp. 168-175. ISSN 2145-6399
Graham, Janna; Graziano, Valeria and Kelly, Susan. 2016. The Educational Turn in Art : Rewriting the hidden curriculum. Performance Research, 21(6), pp. 29-35. ISSN 1352-8165
Report
Rooke, Alison; Graham, Janna; Garrido Sanchez, Cristina; Furlauto, Ananda; Cuch, Laura; Ferreri, Mara and Tabner, Katey. 2012. Modalities of Exchange: A Summary Report on the Serpentine Gallery Project Skills Exchange: Urban Transformation and the Politics of Care. Project Report. The Serpentine Gallery and Goldsmiths, University of London, London.
Thesis
Graham, Janna. 2018. Thinking with Conditions: from Public Programming to Radical Pedagogy in and Beyond Contemporary Art. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London