Elysia French

Assistant Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture

PhD, Queen’s University

MA, Queen’s University

BA, Brock University

 

Office: MW 334

905 688 5550 x 3749

efrench@brocku.ca

Elysia French is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Brock University. French is trained as an art historian and studies contemporary environmentally and socially engaged work. Her research is focused on intersections between art and the environment with a particular interest in climate change, the culture of oil, and multispecies relationships. She is interested in how cultural producers—those operating within the realms of contemporary art and visual culture, community and participatory arts, and activism—are making climate change discourse accessible and relevant to the growing public concern. In recent work, French demonstrated how art is a vital field of inquiry in understanding environmental loss through an exploration of the connections that exist between species and stories. Her current multifaceted and collaborative project, Making (Eco)Logical, brings together diverse perspectives from contemporary artists, activists, curators, scholars and theorists, who explore the ways in which art informs perceptions and communications of environmental and social injustices associated with environmental change. French teaches a range of courses related to twentieth and twenty-first-century art and visual culture art including an Introduction to Contemporary Art, Art and the Environment, and Art Now.