Dot Tuer

Dot Tuer is a writer, artist, and cultural historian whose work explores the intersections of art, memory, and politics. The author of Mining the Media Archive (2005) and curator of the AGO retrospective on Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (Frida and Diego: Passion, Politics, Painting, 2012–13), she has published extensively in anthologies, museum catalogues, and journals. Her creative practice spans film, video, and photography, including recent collaborations documenting spaces of memory in Argentina.

Dividing her time between Toronto and Corrientes, Argentina, Tuer also has a research interest in the history of transculturation in North-East Argentina and Paraguay. She has published on the confluence of Guaraní and Spanish spiritual practices in the colonial era and present-day popular culture, and holds a PhD in Latin American History from the University of Toronto.

At OCAD University, Tuer is a Professor of Visual and Critical Studies and the founding Chair of the program. She has also served as Chair of Criticism and Curatorial Practice and Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science. She teaches courses in Latin American Art, Curatorial studies, History of Photography, and Contemporary Theory.

Tuer has contributed as a board member to many cultural and arts organizations, including the Hemispheric Institute at New York University; the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery; Toronto Arts Council; Cinemateque Ontario; the Funnel Film Theatre; Fuse and C magazines. She also sits on the Advisory Boards of Public and Prefix Photo journals.

In recognition of her contribution to the contemporary art field, Tuer has received OAAG Curatorial Writing Awards, Toronto Arts Awards, National Magazine Awards, Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council grants, and OCAD University's Award for Distinguished Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (2013). She has been a co-investigator on a number of major SSHRC Insight Research and Partnership grants, most recently the SSHRC Partnership Grant Hemispheric Encounters: Developing transborder research-creation practices (2020-27).

Tuer is currently completing a book on visual practices of memory-making in the Americas and writing a novel set in 1970s Argentina during an era of revolutionary politics and state terror.