CURRENT POSITION                                                                                                                 
Artist-in-Residence, USF Verftet, Bergen, Norway
Assistant Professor, Studio for Interrelated Media, Massachusetts College of Art (on leave 2005 -2006)

EDUCATION                                                                                                                            

University of California, Santa Cruz
History of Consciousness Department
M.A./Ph.D. (ABD)
Major Advisers:  Angela Y. Davis/ Victor Burgin
Dissertation: Exhibitionist Tendencies:  Framing the Politics of Identity in Contemporary Exhibition

University of California, Los Angeles
Department of Art
M.F.A., 2003 
Major Adviser:  Mary Kelly

Georgetown University,
Washington, DC
B.A., 1994
Major: English
Minor: Fine Art

University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
International Student Exchange Program
1992-1993

SOLO EXHIBITIONS                                                                                                                 

2005    Kianga Ford                                                     Lisa Dent Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Bedtime Stories                                                            The Project Room, Raid Projects,
Los Angeles, CA
            Story. City.                                                       Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
2003    MFA Thesis Show                                                       New Wight Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS                                                                                                 
                                   
2006    The California Biennial                                      Orange County Museum of Art,
Newport Beach, CA
            Metro Pictures                                                  Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami

2005       Frequency     The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Living for the City         Brooklyn Institute of Contemporary Art @ Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY
Sound Madness            The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada
2004    October Surprise                                                          Avenue 50 Collective, Los Angeles, CA
            Through the Gates: Brown v. Board of Education          California African-American Museum,
Los Angeles, CA
2003    What Do You See at Night                 Track 16, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                                                                         

Silvia Karman Cubina, in Metro Pictures (ex. cat.), The Moore Space and MoCA Miami, 2006

Irene Hofmann, in Frequency (ex. cat.), The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2005

Nizan Shaked, “Tales of Mobility” (ex. essay) for Occidental College Galleries, January 2005

Sharon Mizota, “Kianga Ford” in SF Weekly, October 26-November 1, 2005

Barbara Morris, “Kianga Ford at Lisa Dent Gallery” in Art Week, December/January 2006

Larry Mantle, “Live from the California African American Museum: Brown vs. Board of Education” on Air Talk (89.3 KPCC), May 21, 2004

Allison Keyes, “Museum Exhibit Explores Impact of 'Brown'” on The Tavis Smiley Show (NPR), May 20, 2004

Marva Hawkins, “Ford Succeeds in Artistic Endeavors” in The Sanford Herald, April 7 2004  (ill.)

Marva Hawkins, “Recognizing Outstanding Black Women” in The Sanford Herald, April 4 2004

Valerie Kuklenski, “The Making of a Case” in U-Entertainment, March 22, 2004

Duane Noriyuki, “A Powerful Atmosphere for New Ideas” in The Los Angeles Times, February 7, 2004.

Deborah Willis and Carla Williams, The Black Female Body in Photography.  Philadelphia:  Temple University Press, 2002

PUBLICATIONS                                                                                                                       

House of The Underdog:  Brenna Youngblood.  UCLA Hammer Museum, 2006.

We Are All Post-Exotics: Reflections on the Remix.  X-tra Contemporary Art Quarterly, Volume 7, Issue 4.

Playing with Venus: Black Women Artists and the Venus Trope in Contemporary Imaging in Venus 2000, Temple University Press (publication forthcoming).

“The Loudest Muttering is Over”: Rethinking Self-Representation after Identity in Beyond the Frame: A Project of the Women of Color Research Cluster, Palgrave Press (publication forthcoming).

SELECTED PAPERS, LECTURES & PRESENTATIONS                                              

March 2006

Visiting Artist. Kunstacademie. Bergen, Norway.

November 2005

Visiting Artist. Stanford University. Palo Alto, CA.

May 2005

Conditions of Narrativity, MIT4: The Work of Stories.  MIT. Cambridge, MA.

April 2005

Inquiries & Discoveries:  Pillars of the Community. California African-American Museum.  Los Angeles, CA.

March 2005

Invited Lecture.  Michigan State University. Department of History. East Lansing, MI.
 

March 2005

Visiting Artist Lecture Series.  San Francisco Art Institute. San Francisco, CA.

February 2005

Invited Lecture.  Northeastern University. Visual Arts Department.  Boston, MA.

February 2005

Invited Lecture.  New York University.  Gallatin School of Individualized Study.  New York, NY

February 2005

Making Space:  Labor, Concept, Conceptual Labor, Art of Labor/Labor of Art.   Occidental College.  Los Angeles, CA.

October 2004

Scoring Narrative:  Film Music for Real Cinema with Allison Johnson.  Hamilton College. Hamilton, NY.

February 2004

The Politics of Memory—Andrew Armstrong, Molly Corey, Sara Jordeno, and Renee Petropoulos; curated by Nizan Shaked (panel discussant).  Remsen Bird Symposium, Occidental College.  Los Angeles, CA.

February 2004

Matters Of Difference—Medium, Material & Post-Identity, Representation After Representativeness:  Problems in African American Art Now, College Art Association.  Seattle, WA.

November 2003

Making & Unmaking:  Exhibition between Post-Identity & Globalization, 38th Annual Art History Graduate Symposium, Migrations of Art: Scripting and Staging Subjectivities, UCLA.

October 2003

Narrative, Community, and Post-Identity, Conference of the Consortium for a Strong Minority Presence at Liberal Arts Colleges, Grinnell College.  Grinnell, Iowa.

July 2003

Constructed Intimacies/Contingent Communities. Question. Community? Six Months Project Space. Los Angeles, CA.

February 2003

Invited Lecture. Carleton College. Department of Art and Art History. Northfield, Minnesota.

April 2002

The New Post-Politic—Young Artists and the Struggle for Blackness in Contemporary Art. Diaspora, Descent and Dissent, Transnational and Transcolonial Multicampus Research Group, UCLA. 

April 2002

Identity, Site, and Global Domain—Contemporary Black Art in International Contexts. Expanding the Visual Field, USC.

January 2002

Go, Went, Gone—Kara Lynch, Sharon Hayes, Rita Gonzales, and Laurent Dubois (panel discussant). Radical Time, UCLA.

April 1999

Oprah Winfrey, Kara Walker, and the Primal Scene—New ‘Recollections’ of American Slavery. California American Studies Association, UCSC.

April 1999

The (un) Disciplined Response—Art, Activism, and the Limits of Alternative Knowledge Production Inside the Academy. Crossing Over, 1969-1999: Ethnic Studies and Radical Politics Beyond the Schooling Industrial Complex, UC Berkeley.

March 1999

‘I’ is on the Wall—The Politics of Self and Identity in Photographic Self-Portraiture. Women of Color & Visual Representation, UCSC.

March 1998 

Producing ‘I’—Self-Portraiture and the (a)Political Subject of the Image. Crossing the Boundaries VI, Shifts and Transformations in Visual Culture, SUNY Binghamton.

 

CURATORIAL & SPECIAL PROJECTS                                                                                             

2004-Present

Editorial Board Member, X-Tra Contemporary Art Quarterly

2003

Co-organizer, Question. Community? With Aimee Chang, Six Months, Watts Labor and Community Action Center, and the Armory Pasadena

2002

Co-organizer, Radical Time, Symposium, UCLA

2001-2002

Curator, Visiting Artist Lecture Series, Department of Art, UCLA

2001 

Project Leader, The Visual Literacy Project, Arts Bridge, UCLA/Los Angeles Unified School District

1999

Co-organizer, Women of Color & Visual Representation, with Jennifer Gonzalez and the Research Cluster for the Study of Women of Color in Collaboration and Conflict, UCSC 

1996-1999

Co-organizer, Women of Color Film Festival, Research Cluster for the Study of Women of Color in Collaboration and Conflict, UCSC

 

AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS                                                                                                           

2006

Artist-in-Residence, USF Verftet, Bergen, Norway

2005

Banff Thematic Residency Fellowship – Sound & Vision

2003-2005

Irvine Fellowship, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA

2002-2003

Ella Okern Fellowship, UCLA

2002-2003

Honorable Mention, Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship

2000-2001

Graduate Opportunity Fellowship, UCLA

1998-1999

Humanities Research Institute Conference Grant, with Jennifer Gonzalez and the Research Cluster for the Study of Women of Color, UCSC

1998-1999

UC Research Mentorship Fellowship, UCSC

1996-1997

UC Regents’ Award, History of Consciousness Department, UCSC