معرفی
Krista Thompson is the Mary Jane Crowe Professor of Art History at Northwestern University, affiliated with the Department of Black Studies and the Department of Performance Studies. She is on leave for the academic year 2024–25. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art and visual culture of the African diaspora and the Caribbean, with an emphasis on photography, archives, and lens-based practices. Thompson holds a Ph.D. from Emory University (2002).
Thompson’s work interrogates how African diasporic perspectives expand art history, particularly through her theories of 'shine' and 'Afrotropes.' She has curated exhibitions such as Developing Blackness and En Mas’: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean. Awards include the Charles Rufus Morey Award (2016), Guggenheim Fellowship (2024–25), and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2023).
She founded the Institute of the Unarchived, supporting Caribbean photographic archives. Current projects include Refracting Light: Tom Lloyd and the Effect of Art Historical Disregard and The Evidence of Things Not Captured, examining photographic absence in Jamaica.
