BA(Hons) (Vind), MScR (Edinburgh)
Clare Sully-Stendahl (she/her) is a Faculty Fellow in the Humanities in the Foundation Year Program. She holds a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Studies and Biology with a Certificate in Art History and Visual Culture from the University of King’s College, and an MScR in Collections and Curating Practices from the University of Edinburgh. Her dissertation focused on contemporary artists, including D’Arcy Wilson and Andy and Peter Holden, who in their work engage with natural history, settler-colonial relationships to nature, and politics of care. In her broader research, she is interested in contemporary artistic interventions in the art historical canon, feminist methodologies in art history, and the interplay of image and text in early modern and contemporary art. She has worked in museums and arts spaces in Vancouver, Scotland, and Halifax, as well as in editorial and publishing capacities for organizations including the Art Canada Institute.
Clare is the recipient of a 2026 Harrison McCain Emerging Scholars Award grant for her research project “‘A Lively Community of Creative Women’: Parafictional and Biographical Relations as Research Strategy in Contemporary Art and Curatorial Practice.”
Although she has specialized in contemporary art, her background and passion for art history is wide-ranging—her favourite research topics have included women’s laughter in contemporary art, artists pretending to be other artists, and Dutch depictions of cheese.
Selected Publications
“In Relation with Rocks: Contemporary Art and the Intimacy of Imaginative Geology,” Espace Art Actuel no. 141 (Fall 2025).
