Yaniya Lee is a writer interested in collective practice and the ethics of aesthetics. She is a PhD candidate in Gender Studies at Queen's University.
Lee has written for Vogue, Flash, FADER, Vulture, VICE Motherboard, Canadian Art and C Magazine.
She was a founding collective member of MICE Magazine and is presently a member of the EMILIA-AMALIA working group, which was artist-in-residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario in the summer in 2017. Lee has participated in residencies at Banff (2017), the Blackwood Gallery (2018), Gallery 44 (2018) and Vtape (2019-2020).
In November 2019, Lee and curator Denise Ryner co-convened the Bodies, Borders, Fields Symposium in Toronto. The 3-day series of workshops, performances and talks revisited a 1967 roundtable conversation from artscanada magazine on the theme of “black.” The next year, Lee and Ryner guest-edited Chroma an issue of Canadian Art magazine, dedicated to black artists and black art histories.
Lee was previously on the editorial advisory committees for Fuse and C Magazine, and she now sits on the board of directors of Mercer Union.
This spring, co-presented by Cassandra Press and the Women's Center for Creative Work, Lee and critic Jessica Lynne will lead an writing workshop titled Song. Prayer. Scream. A praxis of looking.
︎ yaniya@yahoo.com