Maya Rae Oppenheimer is a daughter, sister, aunt, plant-mother, friend and colleague who receives financial remuneration as a writer/researcher/artist/educator. She preoccupies herself with writing as social practice and the tangles of historical narratives that inform our contemporary worldviews. Structures of institutional knowledge formation and validation are often the focus of her inquiries, from museum narratives to histories of social psychology. Experimental writing, performance, radical pedagogy, wandering, DIY tactics and rogue archival inquiries are part of the tool-kit she brings to reconsidering and recalibrating histories and ways of knowing and being in the world.

Maya joined the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University in September 2017 as Assistant Professor in Art History and now works across the Department of Studio Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies. She is active in curricular development for 21st century art schools and sits on various cross-university curriculum committees; she is Head of the Interdisciplinary Studies Area in the Faculty of Fine Art.

Maya holds a PhD in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the London Consortium (University of London). Before returning to Canada after a decade in London (UK), Maya: taught at the Royal College of Art, Imperial College London, and the Cass School of Art and Design; worked as a member of earnest, experimental art collectives; held various research positions at the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Research Department; began publishing and editing interdisciplinary projects, both within and beyond peer-review protocols, some of which are open access via academia.edu; served two terms as Executive Trustee for the Design History Society; showed art in sundry spaces including the Science Museum (London, UK), the Rag Factory (London, UK), GV Arts (London, UK), and Cabinet (NYC); was co-director of Metalab (London, UK) an experimental research platform running across the Royal College of Art and University of London from 2012-2017

 keywords that highlight my research interests
radical pedagogy; decolonial teaching and learning practices; museology; institutional activisms; creative writing; social practice art; materiality and language; design history; material culture; queer ecologies; histories of social psychology; manifestos and art; historiography; re-enactment; anarchives; counter archives; radio documentaries; commensality; book art; zine culture

Blurb of University
Concordia University is welcoming, engaged, and committed to innovation and excellence in education, research, creative activity and community partnerships. It dares to be different and draws on its diversity to transform the individual, strengthen society and enrich the world.
Concordia’s core values stem from those long prized by its founding institutions, Loyola College and Sir George Williams University. Concordia adopted the motto of the city of Montreal, Concordia salus, which speaks to well-being through harmony. The union of two very different institutions of higher education has led to an exceptionally successful synthesis of compatible and timely values.

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