Dr. Krista Thompson

Biography

Krista Thompson is the Mary Jane Crowe Professor in the Department of Art History at Northwestern University, where she is also affiliated with the Department of Black Studies and the Department of Performance Studies. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art, visual culture, and the African diaspora, with a particular emphasis on photography and lens-based practices. Thompson is the author of several significant works, including 'Eye Tropics' (2006) and 'Shine: Visual Economy of Light in African Diasporic Aesthetic Practice' (2015). Her contributions to the field have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Charles Rufus Morey Award in 2016 and the James Porter Book Award in 2019. Thompson has also been named a Guggenheim Fellow for 2024-25. She has curated and co-curated various exhibitions that shed light on Caribbean art and history, highlighting her commitment to exploring African diasporic narratives in art. With a robust publication record, her articles have appeared in prominent journals such as Art Journal and Representations. Thompson's innovative approach to art history encourages a reevaluation of the discipline, particularly through the lens of photographic absence and the concept of Afrotropes, studied in collaboration with Huey Copeland. She continues to write and research on themes of presence and absence in Caribbean art and photography.

Research Interests