Jessica Karuhanga biography

Jessica Karuhanga is a first-generation Canadian artist of British-Ugandan heritage whose work addresses issues of cultural politics of identity and Black diasporic concerns through lens-based technologies, writing, drawing and performances. Through her practice she explores individual and collective concerns of Black subjectivity: illness, rage, grief, desire and longing within the context of Black embodiment.

She is the 2020 - 2021 recipient of Concordia University's SpokenWeb Artist/Curator In Residence Fellowship. Karuhanga has presented her work at SummerWorks Lab (Toronto, 2020), The Bentway (Toronto, 2019), Nuit Blanche (Toronto, 2018), Onsite Gallery (Toronto, 2018) and Goldsmiths University (London, UK, 2017). Currently, she is developing new works for forthcoming exhibitions at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, TANGLED Disability + Art, Museum London and Gallery TPW. Karuhanga's writing has been published by C Magazine, BlackFlash, Susan Hobbs Gallery and Fonderie Darling.

 She has been featured in AGO's Artist Spotlight, i-D, DAZED, Visual Aids, Border Crossings, Exclaim!, Toronto Star, CBC Arts, esse, filthy dreams, Globe and Mail and Canadian Art. She earned her BFA from Western University and MFA from University of Victoria. She lives and works in Toronto, Canada where she is part-time lecturer at Ryerson University.