Heather Diack

Dr. Heather Diack is an Associate Professor in the School of Image Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), specializing in art history, curatorial studies, and critical theory. Her research focuses on the intersection of photography, modern/contemporary art, and social conflict, with an emphasis on conceptual art and global practices from the late 1960s to the present. Diack is the author of Documents of Doubt (2020), which examines the relationship between art, protest, and mass media, and co-author of Global Photography: A Critical History (2020), which re-centers photographic narratives beyond Eurocentric frameworks.

• Education:
  • PhD and MA, University of Toronto
  • BA, McGill University
  • Helena Rubenstein Critical Studies Fellow, Whitney Museum Independent Study Program
• Prior Position: Associate Professor of Art History, University of Miami (2012–2023)

Her research has been supported by prestigious fellowships and grants, including the Nadir Mohamed Research Fellowship at TMU’s Image Centre, SSHRC grants, and DAAD/Goethe Institute funding. Diack’s work spans civil rights photography, feminist resistance, war art, climate crisis imagery, and humor in conceptual art. Her current project, Imagined Meetings of the Horizon, explores forced migration through contemporary art.

Awards and Recognition:

• Photography Network Book Prize (2021)
• Wyeth Foundation/CAA Publication Grant (2018)
• Ansel Adams Research Fellowship
• Terra Foundation Visiting Professorship (Freie Universität Berlin)

Diack’s writing appears in journals like The History of Photography, Artforum, and Public. She has held visiting research roles at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Henry Moore Institute. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges historical and contemporary visual culture, emphasizing art’s role in societal debates.