Giulia Smith

Dr Giulia Smith serves as Senior Tutor at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, and holds a Mid-Career Fellowship at the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art. Her scholarly work centers on modern and contemporary art through decolonial and ecological frameworks, with particular emphasis on Caribbean artistic practices across the Atlantic world. Current research investigates how artists mobilize environmental elements against colonial legacies of oppression and exploitation.

Dr Smith earned her PhD from University College London's History of Art Department in 2016. Her academic trajectory includes postdoctoral fellowships at the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art (2018-2019) and the Getty Research Institute (2016-2017), followed by a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at the Ruskin School of Art (2019-2023).

Her research interrogates intersections of empire, environment, and identity through artistic production. Key themes include ecological resistance in Caribbean contexts, crip aesthetics as political critique, and diasporic identity formation. She examines how artists like Aubrey Williams and Antonius Roberts deploy arboreal and climatic metaphors to challenge neo-colonial power structures while exploring chronic illness narratives as frameworks for understanding collective resilience.

Recent publications reveal a consistent focus on decolonial environmentalism and transnational Caribbean art practices. Her scholarship bridges art history with environmental humanities and disability studies, demonstrating how artistic interventions reframe ecological crises through postcolonial lenses. The 2024-2025 works particularly highlight Afro-Caribbean ecological philosophies and their global resonances.

Major recognitions include:

• Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship (2019-2023)
• Paul Mellon Centre Postdoctoral Fellowship (2018-2019)
• Getty Research Institute Fellowship (2016-2017)
• British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (2021)
• Paul Mellon Centre Event Support Grant (2021)

With over ten years of university teaching experience, Dr Smith supervises graduate dissertations and teaches undergraduate modules including 'Telling It as It Is: Truth, Fact and Fabulation'. Her grant-funded projects like the 'Biotic Resistance' seminar series foster international collaboration on eco-Caribbean art practices, resulting in the forthcoming edited volume 'Caribbean Eco-Aesthetics: Strategies for Survival Through Contemporary Art' (Manchester University Press, 2025).

She maintains active institutional partnerships with South London Gallery, ICA, Showroom, and Arcadia Missa, building on her 2017-2018 role as historian-in-residence at South London Gallery/Wellcome Library where she co-developed community-centered approaches to the Peckham Experiment archive.