Yaniya Lee is the author of Selected Writing on Black Canadian Art (2024, figure ground/Art Metropole) and Buseje Bailey: Reasons Why We Have to Disappear Every Once in a While, A Black Art History Project (2024, Artexte).
In 2025, Lee received her PhD in Gender Studies from Queen's University for her portfolio project “Black Art Study: Methods and Methodologies for a Black Studies Approach to Canadian Art History.” Among the projects she developed are the Black Canadian Art History Scholarship Database (blackartstudy.ca) and Doing the Work: Selected Syllabi (greyzonepedagogies.com).
She has published in journals and magazines including Racar: Canadian Art Review, C Magazine, Flash Art, Montez Press, and Asia Art Archive. In 2020 she co-edited a special issue of Canadian Art magazine on black artists and black art histories.
︎ yaniya@yahoo.com
2025
“A Question of Power,” interview with Onyeka Igwe, Tate Etc. magazine, fall (forthcoming)
“We Don’t Need Images What It Feels Like Is Good Enough,” catalogue essay for the 2025 MOMENTA Biennale d’art contemporain: In Praise of the Missing Image, Montreal, fall (forthcoming)
“Wynter’s Toolbox: Notes from Artists and Scholars, ” presented at the Sylvia Wynter and the Scales of the Human Symposium, ICI Berlin, June 2025
Buseje Bailey. Reasons Why We Have to Disappear Every Once in a While. A Black art history project by Yaniya Lee, Book Launch at Modern Fuel artist-run centre, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, June 2025
“An Artist Subverting Propaganda Through Large-Scale Sculptures,” interview with Sandra Poulson for Solo Show in The New York Times Style Magazine, April 2025
“Three of Dawoud Bey’s Favorite Artworks” for Solo Show in The New York Times Style Magazine, February 2025
“The Historical Entanglements of Hemel,” exhibition text to accompany Danielle Dean’s film Hemel, presented at Spike Island, Bristol, spring, 2025 and Mercer Union Gallery, Toronto, spring, 2024
2024
“Flood the World — Alvin Ailey,” and interview with curator Adrienne Edwards in JustSmile Magazine Issue 5, winter 2024
“Some Other Shore,” exhibition text to accompany Racquel Rowe’s exhibition The Centre of the World Was the Beach exhibition at Forest City Gallery, London, winter, 2024
“Sugar – fragments of a narrative,” text to accompany Burnt Sugar, a group exhibition at Critical Distance Centre for Curators, fall 2024
“Lyrical Theorising,” a profile of Alien Daughters Walk Into the Sun author Jackie Wang in Like a Fever for Asia Art Archive, August, 2024
“What does the land know?” curated program of short films, commissioned by Videographe and presented at Dazibao, Montreal, April, 2024
“Methylene Blue,” text to accompany “New Paintings,” exhibition by Systems Research Group and Romain Löser at Guts Annexe, Berlin
“A Modern, Tragic Portrait of the Sea,” interview with Wardell Milan for On View in The New York Times Style Magazine
“The Black Artist,” reading at Bobshop, Berlin
Writing
“Unrequited Love: June Clark's reconfigurations of the U.S. flag and all it represents,” Canadian Art Magazine, Winter 2021.
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“Private Archives: Jorian Charlton at Gallery TPW,” Art in America, Spring 2021.
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“Gambletron’s Technical Submission,” Canadian Art Magazine, Winter 2021.
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“Plant Life,” Gina Badger profile for Block Magazine, Summer 2021.
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“Labour Ambivalence and Vulnerability in Joyce Wieland’s film Hand Tinting,” TERMS: VULNERABILITY - Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Fall 2020.
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“Excesses and Refusals,” with Denise Ryner, introduction to Chroma, Ryner and Lee’s guest edited issue of Canadian Art Magazine, Fall, 2020.
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“Glitch and Figure: representation and refusal in the videos of Buseje Bailey and ariella tai,” Vtape.org, Fall 2020.
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“Inside ‘Young Gifted And Black’: A Project Celebrating The Great Black Artists Of Our Time,” vogue.co.uk, September 2020.
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“Dangerous Liaisons,” The Editorial Magazine, Summer 2020.
“Always Being Moved,” Canadian Art Magazine, Spring 2020.
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“The Choral Rig: on Onyeka Igwe’s No Archive Can Restore You,” Artists in the Cinema 2020, program catalogue, February 28, 2020, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, England
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“Group Theory,” Canadian Art Magazine, Fall 2019.
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“Triangle trade,” Camille Turner, Jérôme Havre and Cauleen Smith, Triangle Trade, exhibition catalogue, January 19–March 24, 2019, Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, BC
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“A Year in Black Art,” Canadian Art, Winter 2018.
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“Tony Cokes’s 1988 video Black Celebration (A Rebellion Against the Commodity),” Flash Art 322, Fall 2018.
“Adrian Piper’s Threat,” Flash Art Magazine 319, Spring 2018.
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“On Fire,” (with Rosa Aiello) Public Journal 29:58 (Fall, 2018): 169-176.
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“We Do Not Know What We Think We Know (and should assume nothing),” exhibition text, Divya Mehra, Pouring Water on a Drowning Man, September 28–November 18, 2017, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon, Manitoba
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“Tactics and strategies of racialized artists: some notes on how to circumvent the art world’s terms of inclusion,” Musagetes, artseverywhere.ca, November, 2018.
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“Will Luke Willis Thompson split the £25000 Turner Prize with Diamond Reynolds if he wins?” gallery44.org, Fall 2018.
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“A Somatic Seeing,” gallery44.org, Summer 2018.
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“blackness, a picture of grace,” gallery44.org, Spring 2018.
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“subject of care,” gallery44.org, Spring 2018.
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“Line Litter,” exhibition text, Laurie Kang, Line Litter, January 12 –February 4, 2017, Franz Kaka, Toronto, Ontario
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“The Women Running the Show: Black women curators in Canada,” Canadian Art Magazine, Fall 2017.
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“Water Bodies: Intimacy in the art and writing of Hannah Black,” magentafoundation.org, Fall, 2016.
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“How Canada Forgot Its Black Artists,” thefader.com, August, 2016.
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“Anxious Territory: The Politics of Neutral Citizenship in Canadian Art Criticism,” C Magazine 128, Winter 2015.
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“Radical Love: Hearing Masha Tupitsyn’s Love Sounds,” exhibition catalogue, November 4–November 5, 2014, Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn, New York
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“Troubled,” two autofiction interviews by Yaniya Lee. Chapbook with L’appat. 2014.
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“In Different Situations Different Behaviour Will Produce Different Results,” interviews with Jacob Wren and Chris Kraus. Chapbook with Palimpsest. 2013.
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Canadian Art Interviews
Expanding Access, an interview with curator Michelle Jacques
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Mutual Aid during a Pandemic: Toronto’s Encampment, an interview with artist Jeff Bierk Support Network
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This is the future, an interview with artist Hito Steyerl
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Conditions for Immersion, an interview with artist Beatrice Gibson
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The Freedom of Existing on the Edge, an interview with Carrie Mae Weems
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The Art of Living, in interview with editor and long-time Claire Denis collaborator Claire Atherton
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Femmes Noires, an interview with artist Mickalene Thomas
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Like No One’s Looking, and interview with artist and publisher Kandis Williams
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Language Matters, an intervie with writer Ben Lerner
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A Conversation with Tau Lewis, an interview with artist Tau Lewis
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Kapwani Kiwanga Gets Personal, an interview with artist Kapwani Kiwanga
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Nick Cave Makes Armour for the World’s Violence, an interview with artist Nick Cave
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