About

MISSION

Dark Opacities Lab is subtitled “a hub for BIPOC political and aesthetic study and strategy” as a means to signal this work as centering the work of people of color and to our political commitments as they precede the aesthetic. It is in this centering of the political that we must understand that a commitment to the work of racial justice comes out of politics, emerges from not only the consciousness of the general antagonism, but has already picked a side.  It is in this way that the lab approaches politics as ethics, the choosing of sides, the work of radical consciousness that requires forms of study and organizing not always available at the school, at the university. Perhaps evident, this structural logic borrows from an anti-colonial politics and ethics that is, too, informed by the writing of Moten and Harney’s The Undercommons.

More practically, Dark Opacities Lab operates in three dimensions: the first of which is Dark Study/Dark Studio: a dual-purpose community reading room and informal zine-making space; secondly is Dark Continuum: an interactive digital hub; and third, Dark Display: in the form of small-scale exhibitions by minoritarian artists, theorists, practitioners. With Dark Study, we orient around forms of study that include research clusters based on bi/tri-annual themes; hand-in-hand is Dark Studio, which we use to produce as a means to help create and design a zine for publication and circulation every semester, so twice yearly.

Dark Continuum will be our connection to the world outside of the university and outside of Montréal. It is this website. Through this site, we imagine there will be ways for us to connect with individuals and groups in academia, in the arts, and in activist organizing. Finally, Dark Display is constituted by the long-term project of the lab’s themes to culminate in forms of small-scale shows of our work across themes of two to three years each: from visual art to text-based forms of engagement; from study sessions to short film screenings, Dark Opacities Lab aims to cultivate and innovate on what constitutes display and itself.

Lab Structure

THE COLLECTIVE

Dark Opacities Lab collective is the primary organizing body of the lab. The Collective is responsible for both short-term and long-term planning and projects for the labs, within and outside of the themes, as well as internal forms of study, creation, writing, and experimentation.   They work collaboratively in the spirit of the lab: one that is both intersectional and internationalist in its approach to the intersections of art and racial justice. 

Current

Balbir K. Singh
Director of Dark Opacities Lab
Canada Research Chair in Art and Racial Justice
Assistant Professor, Department of Art History, Concordia University
Kevin Yuen Kit Lo
Interim Director of Dark Opacities Lab (Fall 2024)
Assistant Professor of Communication Design and Visual Culture, Design and Computation Arts Department, Concordia University
Founder and Creative Director, LOKI
Marcela Torres Molano
Research Assistant
PhD Candidate, Department of Art History, Concordia University
Setayesh Nejadi
Research Assistant
PhD Candidate, Department of Art History, Concordia University

THE SURROUNDS

Drawing from AbdouMaliq Simone’s book of the same name, The Surrounds is Dark Opacities Lab’s Steering Committee. It is primarily composed of Concordia faculty and graduate students, along with three at-large members. The Surrounds helps weigh in on, shape, and guide major lab decisions and directions. In addition, the Surrounds members are invited to share their own work for a colloquium or workshop, or to co-host an event related to one of the two planned themes for the lab. 

May Chew
Assistant Professor, Departments of Cinema and Art History, Concordia University
Muhammad Nour El Khairy
Artist and filmmaker
Joana Joachim
Assistant Professor of Black Studies, Department of Art History, Concordia University
Jenny Lin
Visual Artist
Kevin Yuen Kit Lo
Interim Director of Dark Opacities Lab (Fall 2024)
Assistant Professor of Communication Design and Visual Culture, Design and Computation Arts Department, Concordia University
Founder and Creative Director, LOKI
Po B.K. Lomami
Interdisciplinary Artist; MFA Studio Arts, Concordia University
Allan E. S. Lumba
Assistant Professor, History Department, Concordia University
Matthias Mushinski
PhD Student, Film and Moving Image Studies, Concordia University
Anjali Nath
Assistant Professor in Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology
University of Toronto Mississauga
Sue Shon
Assistant Professor, Humanities Department, Emily Carr University of Art and Design
Mélinda Pierre-Paul Cardinal
PhD Student, Department of Gender Studies, Queen’s University

THE CONSTELLATION

Dark Opacities Lab’s Constellation is a network of non-local lab members, relations, and interlocutors. Such affiliation with the lab enables possible modes of connection across Turtle Island, and Constellation members are invited to attend or help organize virtual or hybrid webinars, teach-ins, and workshops. In addition, like the Surrounds, Constellation members are invited to share their own work for a colloquium or workshop, or to co-host an event related to one of the two planned themes for the lab in-person as well. 

Mar Aziz
Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of Washington
Kimberly Juanita Brown
Associate Professor, Department of English
Director, Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life
Dartmouth College
micha cardénas
Artist
Associate Professor, Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, University of California – Santa Cruz
Jakeya Caruthers
Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies, Department of English and Philosophy, Drexel University
Vivian Huang
Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies, San Francisco State University
Ren-yo Hwang
Associate Professor, Departments of Gender Studies, Critical Social Thought, and Critical Race and Political Economy, Mount Holyoke College
Malav Kanuga
Postdoctoral Fellow, Media, Inequality and Change Center, Annenberg School for Communication
Katherine Lennard
Frockt Family Chair, Associate Professor, Western Kentucky University
Bakirathi Mani
Penn Presidential Compact Professor, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania
Naveen Minai
Assistant Teaching Professor, Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto
Neelofer Qadir
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Georgia State University
Sarita Echavez See
Professor, Department of English, University of California – Riverside
Sarah Stefana Smith
Artist
Assistant Professor, Department of Gender Studies, Mount Holyoke College
Wendy Sung
Assistant Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures, University of California – Los Angeles

Funding

Canada Research Chair
Social Science and Humanities Research Council
Concordia University

Location

Physical Location:
For room number, please email info@darkopacitieslab.com
Engineering and Visual Arts (EV) Complex
Sir George Williams (SGW) Campus
Concordia University

Mailing Address:
Dark Opacities Lab
c/o Dr. Balbir K. Singh
Department of Art History, EV 3.809
1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8
Canada

CONTACT