Julie Crooks is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Art and Archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK. Her Dissertation Project is entitled, Signifying Modernities: Early Photography in Africa and the African Diaspora.Her main research interests are Modernism and Visual Culture, specifically photography in Africa and the African Diaspora. For the past three years she has curated shows for the National Film Board of Canada including Textured: Quilts from the African Diaspora (2007), Perspectives (2006), and a show based on an exploration of representations of the black male body (2005). Her most recent exhibition for Canadian Heritage features the work of local emerging and mid-career African Canadian artists. She currently teaches Art in the African Diaspora at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto.