Julie Crooks

Julie Crooks is a Canadian curator, researcher and instructor. She has been the head of the department of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora at the Art Gallery of Ontario since its founding in 2020.

Biography Crooks was born in England and is the sister-in-law of athlete Charmaine Crooks. Her research is focused on Sierra Leone, West Africa, and the African diaspora. After completing her studies she was a Rebanks Post Doctoral Fellow at the Royal Ontario Museum from 2014 to 2016. During that time, she co-curated the exhibit Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art with African collection curator Silvia Forni and Haitian-born researcher Dominique Fontaine.

Crooks joined the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) as Assistant Curator of Photography in 2017. She curated her first exhibit Free Black North the same year. She also worked an exhibit called Ears, Eyes, Voice: Black Canadian Photojournalists 1970s-1990s’. As photography curator, she played an integral role in the acquisition of the Montgomery Collection, which consists of more than 3,500 of historical images documenting life in the Caribbean islands. This collection is possibly the largest collection of photographs from the Caribbean islands. She is a co-founder of the Black Curators Forum, which was launched in 2019 and supports Black curators in Canada.

Crooks was one of three individuals chosen as a jury sitter for the 2020 Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators. In this role, she was tasked with selecting an artist to receive the prize of a space for their submitted exhibition or honorarium.

Publications