Sarah Mousseau (they/them/she/her) is a doctoral student in Art History working under the supervision of Dr. Mary Hunter. Their PhD research focuses on the role of visual art in the modern development of identity-based narratives in British and settler-colonial culture. Sarah’s research interests includes print culture, graphic satire, drug and alcohol consumption (in visual art as well as a form of ritual amongst artistic communities), gender/transgender representation, appropriation, nostalgia, temporality, anachronism, intersectional-feminist studies, queer theory, and decolonial theory and practices.
In 2005, Sarah received her diploma in Film and Television Production at Humber College with a concentration in production management, script writing, and film editing. After graduating, she worked in the animation industry for ten years before choosing to pursue her BA (Hons) at the University of Guelph. She then completed her MA in Art History and Visual Culture at Guelph under the supervision of Dr. Christina Smylitopoulos, with a specialization in gender representation in the work of eighteenth-century British artist John Collet (c. 1725-1780). Her research on the intersection of gender and depictions of drug and alcohol consumption in the long-eighteenth-century was supported by a SSRHC CGS-M and Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
In addition, Sarah has their own creative practice that they use as supplementary research to compliment their art historical studies. Their artistic pursuits includes printmaking, painting, papier mâché, and collage work. Most recently, they have taken up digital art as a way of engaging with political subjects found in popular culture. Sarah has also led several workshops for their local community that employ art-making as a form of self-care, exploration, and expression for participants.