Curriculum Vitae

Yani Kong is a writer, editor, and scholar of contemporary art in Vancouver, Canada. She has recently published essays for the Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation, Vancouver BC, the Freedman Gallery, Reading PA, and is a regular contributor to Galleries West as well as multiple national and international publication.  She is SSHRC Doctoral Fellow of Contemporary Art at the School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA), Simon Fraser University, researching reception aesthetics and contemporary art history. As a member of the Low Carbon Research Methods Working Group, she explores sustainable practices in streaming media. Kong is a faculty member in the department of art history and religious studies at Langara College and the BC and Yukon Representative for the Universities Arts Association Congress (UAAC-AAUC).

ACADEMIC HISTORY

ABD     PhD: The School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University                    

2011      MA: Theory, Culture, and Politics, Trent University

2006    BA: Art and Culture Studies, Simon Fraser University

EMPLOYMENT

Instructor, Langara College, Faculty of Art History and Religious Studies, Teaching Areas: Contemporary Art History, Cultural Theory in the Arts: 2021-present

Instructor, Art and Activism (CA 314), Simon Fraser University, School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA): Spring 2018

MENTORSHIP AND SUPERVISION

Site Supervisor, Internship for Sylvia Zhi with Comparative Media Arts Journal (CA 306), Fall 2018.

Publication Supervisor, Directed Studies for Mallory Gemmel (CA 888), The Role of the Editor with Comparative Media Arts Journal, Fall 2018

Reader, Extended Essay, Mallory Gemmel (CA 829), “All that I need is the Air that I Breathe,” in partial fulfilment for the Degree of Master of Arts, July 2018.

RESEARCH ASSISTANCE

Dr. Laura Marks, September 2016-December 2021

·      Editorial Assistant, Marks, Laura U., From your Body to the Cosmos, Volume I and Volume II, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, forthcoming.

·      Editorial Assistant, Marks, Laura U. and Stephen Makonin et. al, Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Knowledge Synthesis grant program, “Living within the Earth’s Carrying Capacity,” October 2021.

 Dr. Claudette Lauzon, January 2017-September 2017

·      Editorial Assistant, Lauzon, Claudette and John O’Brien eds., Through Post Atomic Eyes, Kingston, ON: McGill-Queens University Press, 2020.

·      Editorial Assistant, Alvarez, Natalie and Claudette Lauzon, Karen Zointz eds., Sustainable Tools for Precarious Times, London, UK, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

·      Event Organizer, Troubling Times and Ecologies of Nothingness, Speaker, Karen Barad, March 20, 2017.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE

Programming, Grant Writing, Small File Media Festival, June 2023-Present

Managing Editor, Comparative Media Arts Journal, Simon Fraser University, September 2017-September 2021

Doctoral Fellow, Institute for Performance Studies, Simon Fraser University, 2016-Present

Peer Reviewer, Comparative Media Arts Journal, Simon Fraser University, 2015-Present

Editorial Board, Comparative Media Arts Journal, Simon Fraser University, 2015-2016

Symposium Organizer, Curiosities: Symposium in Comparative Media Arts, Simon Fraser University, 2014.

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Kong, Yani, Laura Marks and Stefan Smulovitz, “Examining the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media in Online Teaching and Learning,” Living Lab Initiative, SFU Sustainability, Vancouver, BC, Completed January 2022.

PEER REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

Kong, Yani, “Archives of No Place: The Frivolous Line in Mounira Al Solh’s Portraiture,” (Re)presentation of Refugees in Media: Local and Global Perspectives, Eds. Uddin, Nassir and MD. Delwar Hossain, London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, Forthcoming.  

Walker, Dawn and Yani Kong, “Reimagining Networks: Speculative Thinking for Low-Carbon Research Networks,” Low-Carbon Research Methods, Ed. Pasek, Anne, London, UK: Goldsmiths College, Forthcoming.

Kong, Yani, “Review: This Atom Bomb in Me, Lindsey A. Freeman, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019.” Memory Studies Journal, Volume 13, Issue 3, 2020.

Kong, Yani, “Review: Abject Visions: Powers of Horror in Art and Visual Culture, eds. Rina Arya and Nicholas Chare, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2016.” RACAR, Vol. 43, no. 22, 2018.

Kong, Yani, "What is this New Moment? The Art of Urgency in This Now, More than Ever," Comparative Media Arts Journal, Issue 4|Slowness, October 2018. 

CREATIVE PUBLICATIONS

Kong, Yani and Laura U. Marks, “‘You can’t look into my eyes.’ The Aesthetics of Small File Cinema,” Small File Photo Festival, Unthinking Photography: The Journal of the Photographers Gallery, May 2023.

Kong, Yani, “Shaheer Zazai X Yani Kong,” Le Sigh, Issue 06, November 2022.

Kong, Yani, “Things Were Never Normal: The Photography of Leah Frances,” Exhibition Essay, Leah Frances, Freedman Gallery at Albright College, Reading PA, Forthcoming, 2022.

Kong, Yani, “Something Other than What is There,” Exhibition Essay, We can only hint at this with words: Russna Kaur, M.E. Sparks, Andrea Taylor, The Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation, April 2022.

Kong, Yani, “Introduction,” Comparative Media Arts Journal, Issue 10|Enchantment, Disenchantment, Reenchantment, August 2021.

Kong, Yani, ed., Comparative Media Arts Journal, Issue 10|Enchantment, Disenchantment, Reenchantment, August 2021.

Kong, Yani, “The Great Refusal: In Conversation with Michelle Nguyen,” Public Parking Journal, May 2021.  

Kong, Yani, “Three Doors to the Past, Present, and Future: In Conversation with Cindy Mochizuki,” Public Parking Journal, July 2020.

Kong, Yani, “Seeing America from the Outside: Leah Frances and the Still Persisting World,” American Squares. New York, NY: AINT-BAD, 2019.

Igbokwe, Odera and Yani Kong, “How do I sew together the fractures of the diaspora?” Comparative Media Arts Journal, Issue 6|Aesthetics of Heterogeneity, September 2019.  

CONFERENCES (PEER REVIEWED)

Kong, Yani, Session Chair, “Wild Combination,” Universities Arts Association Congress (UAAC-AAUC), Vancouver, BC, October 2023 (Forthcoming).

Kong, Yani, “Scaler Extremes: Anicka Yi’s Fermented Umwelts,” College Arts Association, Chicago IL, February 2022.

Kong, Yani, Session Chair, “Immaterial Material: The Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media in Online Teaching and Learning,” Universities Arts Association Congress (UAAC-AAUC), Vancouver, BC, October 2021.

Kong, Yani, “A Hotter Compost Pile: Anicka Yi’s Fermented Umwelts,” Universities Arts Association Congress (UAAC-AAUC), Vancouver, BC, October 2021.

Kong, Yani, “Going to Pieces: Cinematic Disintegration at the End of the World,” College Arts Association, New York, New York, February 2021.

Kong Yani, Session Chair, “Enchantment, Disenchantment, Reenchantment: Rethinking Practices of Interconnection in a Century of Crisis,” Universities Arts Association Congress (UAAC-AAUC), Vancouver, BC, October 2020.

Kong, Yani, “Archives of No Place: The Frivolous Line in Mounira Al Solh’s Portraiture,” Universities Arts Association Congress (UAAC-AAUC), Vancouver, BC, October 2020.

Kong, Yani, “Going to Pieces,” Universities Arts Association Congress (UAAC-AAUC), Quebec City, Quebec, October 2019.

Kong Yani, Session Chair, “Affective Framing: Curatorial Experiments and Reception Aesthetics,” Universities Arts Association Congress (UAAC-AAUC), Quebec City, Quebec, October 2019.

Kong, Yani, “The Place of the Encounter: Using the Body to Navigate Art,” Uncommon Senses II: Art, Technology, Education, Law, Society – and Sensory Diversity, Concordia University, Montreal, May 2018.

Kong, Yani, “‘What is this New Moment?’ The Art of Urgency in This Now, More Than Ever,” Universities Arts Association Congress (UAAC-AAUC), Banff, Alberta, October 2017.

Kong, Yani, “Falling and Other Bodies: The Unpublishable Bodies of September 11th,” Spaces of Remembering and Forgetting: An Interdisciplinary Conference, Memory Studies Research Cluster, South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership, University of Bristol, UK, 2017.

Kong Yani, “They Can Not Just Disappear: The Unpublished bodies of September 11th,” UBC 40th Annual AHVA Symposium, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2017.

PUBLIC LECTURES AND SYMPOSIA

Kong, Yani, “Examining the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media in Online Teaching and Learning,” Pacific Institute of Climate Science, University of Victoria, Video Conference, February 2022. 

Kong, Yani, “A Certain Feeling of the Universe: A Theory of Enchantment for Contemporary Global Art,” Reed College, Fall Art History Speaker Series, Portland OR, November 2021.

Kong, Yani, “Pushing Against the Substitution Effect: Best Practices for Carbon Neutral Streaming in Remote Teaching and Learning,” Burnaby Festival of Learning, Vancouver, BC, April 2021.

Kong, Yani, “Re-enchantment: Radical Encounters with Art after 9/11,” Vancouver Institute for Social Research, The OR Gallery, Vancouver, 2016.