Assistant Professor (status-only), Art History, University of Toronto

Dr. Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon is an art historian and curator with a research focus on Korean art and visual culture, in relation to global contemporary art, transnationalism, feminist activism and socially engaged art. As Associate Curator of Korean Art and Culture at ROM, she curates exhibitions and programs, and oversees Canada’s largest collection of Korean art and cultural heritage. Prior to joining ROM, she was a postdoctoral fellow of the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies, at Seoul National University, and a doctoral fellow of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta, where she received her PhD degree of History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture. An award-winning educator, Dr. Kwon taught in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta, from 2017 to 2022, and has been teaching as an Assistant Professor (status-only) in the Department of Art History at the University of Toronto since 2023.

Her curated exhibitions include Mass and Individual: The Archive of the Guyanese Mass Games (Arko Art Center, Seoul, 2016), Designing Connection in Friction (Harcourt House Artist Run Centre, Edmonton, AB, 2018), and Reimagining Places: Land, Store, Home (Korean Culture Centre Canda, Ottawa, ON, 2022). She also coordinated transdisciplinary research projects, which resulted in exhibitions at international venues, including Immune Nations (the UNAIDS headquarters, Geneva, 2017, curated by Dr. Natalie Loveless). 

She has published her research in various journals including Korean Studies and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, edited volumes and exhibition catalogues (see below for detail). Kwon created a digital archive of the Guyanese Mass Games at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, Korea (2015), as a guest researcher, and conducted research in the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Korea (MMCA) Changdong Residency. Kwon also contributed to MMCA publications related to Korean art history and museum studies as an academic translator.