To Members of the Assessment Committee:

I submit this dossier in support of my application for promotion to the rank of Full Professor at OCAD University.  As you will see, my scholarship, research, teaching, university service, and curatorial scholarship merit the promotion.
            Over my career I have taught widely in the fields of history, visual and material culture, critical theory, and curatorial practice at the undergraduate and graduate levels.  As a teacher I understand the great responsibilities of introducing students to subject areas, ideas, and information in the context of the classroom and the shared enterprise of learning. I have advised and supervised nearly forty graduate students, and directed numerous undergraduate students in my role as faculty at OCAD University.  My teaching evaluations reveal a consistently high level of classroom skill and pedagogical practice.  Students have regularly written to me to thank me for the course in which they were enrolled or to say how a particular class was especially meaningful, influenced their thinking, and aided them in their work. As one student wrote about a course on the history and semiotics of interior design, “Just wanted to say thank you for a great class. I've been inspired to look beyond aesthetics for interiors as I always used to in the past and have found an interest again in looking at more meaningful design rather than following what’s trending right now. I rarely send emails to profs to thank them as my courses have been very standard and feel repetitive, so I just felt I had to write this email. Again I appreciate you for inspiring me!” In addition, in recognition of my design teaching, in 2018 I had the great honor of being invited to teach in India at the National Institute of Design in Bangalore.  
            As a scholar and researcher, I have written extensively (books, chapters in books, articles and other critical texts), presented numerous papers at conferences around the world, sat on academic and public sector panels, served on city and provincial art juries, and have frequently been sought out by the press as a subject-matter expert about stories as wide-ranging as the taste implications of the work of a contemporary artist who paints scenes of animals and nature, shifting trends in car design, the premise of customizable mass-produced furniture, the loss of historic buildings, and the challenges of preservation and issues of environmental stewardship in the context of art and design education.  In 2023 I was awarded by the Historians of British Art, the respected academic organization for my field, with the prize for author on a contemporary artist.  The honor recognized my groundbreaking work on the artist Hurvin Anderson and my significant contributions to the critical consideration of British expressive culture.  The jury commended me for my “remarkable scholarship.” 
            My newest book RESIDE: Contemporary Westcoast Houses (2023) considers the residential work of over thirty architectural firms working in British Columbia.  The book considers issues of context, form, program and sustainability.  My concluding essay, “The BC Idiom reconsidered” was titled in response to a 1972 essay by Vancouver architect Barry Downs on the history and then-current state of domestic architecture in the region and what he called the “BC Idiom”. In my text, while focusing primarily on the creativity of the profiled firms and the enduring legacies and lessons of critical regionalism at mid-century, I look beyond the varied condition of residential architecture by situating my critique in the context of larger issues in the province and field including, importantly, decolonization (97% percent of settler British Columbia is unceded), long-standing challenges around home ownership in Vancouver and environs and what is called the Lower Mainland in particular, and, lastly, the slow-to-change demographics of the architectural profession in the province. The essay sought to balance close consideration of new and often distinguished exercises in home design with an acknowledgement of the complex contemporary realities of place.
            Importantly, my scholarship has merited appointments on international government boards and panels.  The South Africa Research Council, a select body of scholars for the study of the postcolonial Commonwealth, twice appointed me as Reviewer: once for the South African Research Chair Initiative (SARCHI) and once for the grants program.  This distinction recognizes scholars who shaped the field of postcolonial studies and made significant contributions to the understanding of nationalism, race, and cultural studies.  I have also served as the external examiner on graduate theses from the University of New South Wales (Philosophy and Design theory) and the University of Pretoria (Curatorial Studies).  Notably, the Canadian government invited me to deliver a keynote at the 2024 Venice Biennale, one of the highest profile exhibitions within contemporary art, on the cultural significance of Canadian artist Kapwani Kiwanga’s pavilion.                   
            In 2020 and 2024, I was awarded fellowships from the Yale Center for British Art to research works in their collection.  My 2020 fellowship was postponed to 2023 due to the Covid-19 pandemic; during this fellowship I considered the work of 18th century British artist Arthur Devis and his depictions of affluent domestic interiors, looking specifically at the conventional tropes of interpretive labels and texts about British art history, which often ignore or downplay acknowledgement of the nation’s colonial and imperial pasts and the direct discussion of the institution of the enslavement of Africans and African diasporic peoples.  In particular, my research considered the interpretive implications of the presence and roles of imperial commodities, namely mahogany furniture and the objects necessary for serving tea (with sugar bowls being of specific significance).  As requisite material elements in the performance of gentility, Devis’s depictions of material self-fashioning would not have been possible without the trade in humans and its brutal labor practices.  Framed by the interpretive theories of racial capitalism, my work resulted in my delivering several lectures to the Yale University and museum community, and will eventually serve as the basis for a text about museum interpretation.  On several occasions during my fellowship I was asked by the Chief Curator of the YCBA, Dr. Martina Droth, to share my thoughts with her and her colleagues about how images like those produced by Devis and others could be interpreted, and about possible decolonizing strategies for the re-installation of the permanent collection.
             In 2024, my research mandate at the YCBA about museum labeling was broadened to include consideration of museological practices regarding provenance. This research, underpinned by the alarming statistics about the high percentage of looted objects on display in western institutions – artifacts from antiquity, from Asia and from the continent of Africa, and to a degree, objects stole by the Nazis – asked questions about how museums and galleries could be more forthcoming and transparent with information about the origin of objects in their collections and on display.  This research sought to develop new models for global museum practices which aim to establish a culture of truth and openness.  As with my work on Devis, this research will form the basis for articles and essays making the argument for decolonized, radically reconfigured museum practices that not only dismantle conventional interpretive models, but make clear the complicity of institutions in acts of cultural violence and their erasure. In sum, my work at the YCBA interrogated the conventions of instructional didactics and the writing of interpretive labels in service of new and lasting decolonizing strategies for a fresh and transformative reading of British and western art. I proffered new models for the presentation of multiple interpretive strands for the diverse public that comprise museum audiences.                 
            As a curator – scholarship in the public realm - I am aware of the value of exhibition-making in all its complexity and have had many opportunities in my career to translate ideas into exhibitions for broad consideration. I have curated numerous exhibitions of art, craft and design, and architecture. In each instance, the development and execution of the exhibition turns on research and analysis and the display of expressive culture, whether works of art or objects. My work as a curator was recognized when, in 2015, I was invited to speak at the “Curating Conversations” course, a joint undertaking of Central Saint Martins and Autograph Gallery in London, UK.  My intellectual interests in the expansive Atlantic world and the emergence and operations of modernist sensibilities in painting, sculpture, design, and architecture are threaded throughout my public scholarship.  I have written widely in the public sphere of art, design and culture with over thirty-five articles and essays, in addition to exhibition catalog essays and gallery publications.  I have been asked to give several keynote addresses – for example, at the Architectural Association in London, at the BMW Guggenheim City Lab in New York City, and at the Drammens Museum of Art and Cultural History in Drammens, Norway, and the Commencement Address at Sheridan College of Technology and Advanced Learning,  in Oakville, Ontario,, among others, and I have appeared regularly in a television series on Canadian design (“Design Decades” which aired on TV Ontario and sold internationally).  My curatorial scholarship has been recognized by numerous international associations and since 2013 I have served on the International Program Committee for the respected and influential International Society of Electronic Arts [ISEA], an organization dedicated to supporting artists working at the new frontiers of creative work in the realms of the digital, the performative and the conceptual and critical.    
            As a faculty member at OCAD University since 2009, I have valued deeply the responsibilities and opportunities of service and collective governance where the informed stewarding of curriculum and the development and review of academic and institutional policies are vital to both the creation of a respectful community of learning and its productive, adaptive longevity. I have served on various university committees – Quality Assurance, Academic Standards, Policy and Planning, among others–and been appointed as the Chair of two graduate programs – one in curatorial practice and one in contemporary art history, new media and design.  In addition, at the university administration level, I have been appointed to terms as Associate and Interim Dean of Graduate Studies at the university. In all instances, I devoted myself to gaining mastery of the program brief, focus of the committee and administrative position.  I know the entwined importance of the obligations of service and benefits of informed, thoughtful governance. I have valued the opportunities presented to me to serve the university and I have done so for the wellbeing of what is a distinct and remarkable intellectual community.         
            Additionally, I have a deep commitment to service to my field and to the art and design profession.  I currently lead and serve on multiple boards, including the Editorial Committee of Studio: Craft and Design in Canada and, since 2005, writing two columns a year for this biannual publication; and serving on the board of The Nathaniel Dett Chorale, a multicultural internationally renowned choir that sings the African diasporic songbook. I also serve on the national, Vancouver-based Arthur Erickson Foundation, the mission of which is to preserve the architectural legacies of Canadian architect Arthur Erickson and to advance architectural education and public engagement. In my roles as Vice President East and chair of the educational committee, I have worked with Indspire, the national Indigenous organization, and the Wosk Family Foundation, in establishing a scholarship program for Indigenous students interested in studying architecture and its allied design fields, including landscape architecture and urban planning. This work has a consequence of my commitment as a settler citizen of Canada/Turtle Island to aiding the implementation of the “Calls to Action” laid out in the 2015 “Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission” and to building on Mr. Erickson’s deep understanding of Indigenous cultures in Canada and elsewhere, as well as his commitment to environmental stewardship and an activist profession. I served for ten years on the board of C Magazine, the national journal of contemporary art criticism; served as an executive and board member of Craft Ontario, an organization for artisans and makers in Ontario, served on the board of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, which is devoted to the preservation of the built environment and the promotion of greater understanding about the cultural, social and ecological values of tangible heritage.  My leadership in and service to these organizations has helped shape the public realm of art, design, craft, architecture, and architectural and design education in Canada. 
            My teaching, scholarship, and service meet the standards for promotion to the rank of Full Professor. My scholarship enjoys a favorable international reputation and has merited numerous awards, my teaching has been recognized, and my service to my institution and field is extensive and has contributed positively to the university.  I thank you for your consideration of my application.

Sincerely,

Michael J. Prokopow, Ph.D.