Biography
Roxanne Fernandes is an experienced arts worker specializing in administration, production, and research and an emerging curator/programmer based in Tkarón:to/Toronto. Her evolving practice explores and ruminates on archives/counter-archives, memory-making, and storytelling, through methods that are slow and experimental. She has an interest in any type of lens-based or new media practices, embracing the “in process” or constantly evolving, drawing connections between artists and practices across geographies and through public programming and performance, publications, pedagogy, and developing relationalities with the environments around us. She has curated and programmed for Images Festival (Toronto, 2019), the Confederation Centre Art Gallery (Charlottetown, 2023-24), Art in the Open (Charlottetown, 2023) and the OCAD U Graduate Gallery (Toronto, 2023).
As an arts worker, specifically working in administration and project management, Roxanne strives to create applicable change in the sector through an active and considered evaluation of best and bespoke processes. She approaches her work as inherently and urgently creative, believing that the non-for-profit structure and ecosystem can be a place of greater experimentation and resource-sharing with a deep consideration towards opportunities, mentorship, education, and experience-building for the next generation and apt support for platformed artists and curators. Roxanne has worked at Toronto Biennial of Art, Images Festival, TIFF, and has freelanced for various institutions and artists across the city, including Syrus Marcus Ware and Camille Turner. She served on the Board of SAVAC from 2021 – 2024.
With an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto in Art History and Cinema Studies and an Ontario College Graduate Certificate from Humber College in Arts Administration and Cultural Management, Roxanne supplements her artistic and historical knowledge with research and applications of critical theory. Recently, she earned an Masters of Fine Arts in Criticism & Curatorial Practice from OCAD U, winning the Program & President’s Award for her thesis publication Stories of Rivers and Gold: Counter-archives of a Guyanese Transnational Identity, which explored de- and post-colonial counterarchiving methodologies, contextualizing it through the practice and works of three contemporary Guyanese artists. She hopes to continue this work, and the act of documenting and archiving, as a personal creative endeavour.
For a complete CV and project inquiries, please email roxanne [dot] fernandes [at] outlook [dot] com