Carol Payne

Carol Payne is a Full Professor of Art History at Carleton University. She is cross-appointed to the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture (ICSLAC) and the School of Canadian Studies, and serves as a Research Associate at the Carleton Centre for Public History and the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre. Since 2020, she has been Associate Dean (Research and International) in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

• Education: B.F.A. (York University), M.A. and Ph.D (Boston University)

Her research focuses on the history of photography, particularly its role in settler colonialism and Indigenous communities in Canada. She co-edited The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada (2011) and authored The Official Picture (2013), a study of the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada’s Still Photography Division. Since 2005, she has collaborated with Inuit groups on photo-based history research, including the SSHRCC-funded Views from the North (2005-2014) and the Joseph Idlout photographs project (2017-present). Her recent international collaboration with Cambridge scholars addresses Arctic climate change through visual culture.

Carol Payne supervises graduate theses on photography, settler colonialism, and visual culture. She co-curated The Other NFB exhibition (2016-2017) and developed the online exhibition Ajjiliurlagit: The Photographs of Joseph Idlout (2022). Her work integrates Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit principles and cybercartographic technologies to critically examine photographic archives.