Julia Stachura
Julia Stachura is a University Assistant with a PhD in the Section of Art History at the Department of Art History and Musicology at the University of Graz. She earned her Ph.D. from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where her doctoral dissertation, Tangible Memories, analyzed strategies of redefinition and empowerment in Black self-portraiture. Her thesis introduced concepts such as "tangible memories," "re-pair of the canon(s)," and "archival bodies" to examine the power dynamics and interconnectedness of the photographic medium, memory, and identity. In 2023–2024, she was a Fulbright Junior Research Award visiting researcher at the Department of Photography & Imaging at NYU Tisch School of the Arts under the supervision of Dr. Deborah Willis. Her international research background also includes a grant-funded visiting research fellowship at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, as well as participation in the global dis:connect Summer School at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Her current research project, under the working title "Disarming the Colonial Imagery," centers on the deconstruction of ethnographic and photographic archives. She focuses on the contemporary art practices of Caribbean and African diasporas, as well as the analysis of visual resistance against the disciplining of the female body within the colonial matrix of power. She is also interested in the intersections of Afrofuturism, critiques of neocolonialism, and hybrid identities, while integrating an ecocritical perspective on post-colonial landscape representations.
As an independent curator, she has organized exhibitions in Poland and the United States, collaborating with art institutions and non-governmental organizations. Her curatorial and theoretical practice revolves around lens-based media, the invisibility of power structures, and the tangibility of memory. She is the author of peer-reviewed academic publications and monograph texts, and is currently adapting her dissertation into an English-language monograph. In addition to her academic and curatorial work, she serves as a Fulbright Program Ambassador in Poland, actively contributing to cultural diplomacy, university teaching, and science outreach.
