ISSG Core Faculty Member and Professor of Contemporary Art and LGBTQ+ Studies, Julia Bryan-Wilson, has been selected as a 2025-2026 Faculty Visitor at Reid Hall.
Over the course of one- to three-week stays in Paris, Faculty Visitors will work with archives and museums such as the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Musée du Quai Branly. They will contribute to public lectures, the Columbia Global Paris Center’s Atelier podcast, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination’s Library Chats video series.
Professor Bryan-Wilson researches feminist and queer theory, artistic labor, and craft histories. Her current work includes studies of materiality and the politics of art-making. She has curated exhibitions on art and social histories and is active in exploring collaborative and durational art practices.
In Paris, Bryan-Wilson will research her book AIDS is Contemporary, which argues that the 1980s AIDS crisis—not the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall—marks the true beginning of contemporary art by highlighting the urgency and inclusion of activist and non-traditional art forms like posters, zines, and performance. She will engage with the archives and ideas from the recent Exposé-es exhibition at Palais de Tokyo and interview Paris-based activist Élisabeth Lebovici.
