Artist Bio

[25 words]: SA Smythe is a Black trans artist, critical theorist, educator, and a student of abolition. They are based between Tkaronto, Rome, and unceded Tongva land.

SA Smythe is a Black trans artist, critical theorist, and educator. They choreograph cartographies of black belonging, integrating poetry, performance, light sculpture, sound composition, photography, and archival ephemera. Smythe’s transmedia art has been featured in collaborative and solo exhibitions, installations, edited poetry collections, and festivals, including Tkaronto-based institutions the Blackwood Gallery, the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Gallery of York University, and FADO Performance Art Centre (all in 2023), and internationally: BASE Milano (2023), the Bell Gallery/Brown Arts Institute (2023-24), Berkeley Arts Centre (2023), Palazzino indiano arte | PIA/CANGO (Florence, 2022), GXRLSCHOOL (Los Angeles, 2019), Kampnagel (Hamburg, 2021), Dark Matter Cypher (Sage Ni’Ja Whitson/Fathomers/CAAM, 2020), co-headliner for the Africa Writes Literary Festival (London, 2016), and the Mattatoio Museum (Rome, 2022). Their poetry work has been featured in Catapult, Apogee, We Have Never Asked Permission to Sing: Poetry Celebrating Trans Resilience, Feminist Wire, okayafrica, California Fire & Water: Climate Crisis Anthology, contemp(t)orary, Johannesburg Salon, We Were Most Honest When Language Split Open: Queer and Trans Black Writers of Latin American Descent on Memory, Care, and Futures, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2022 Rome Prize for Modern Italian Studies, SA Smythe is currently based between Tkaronto, Rome, and occupied Tongva land. They are Assistant Professor of Black Studies & the Archive at the University of Toronto, where they direct the Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis. (225 words)

in italiano – forthcoming

en français – forthcoming