Dr Maya Rae Oppenheimer, MA(RCA), PhD

Brief biography

maya rae oppenheimer is a daughter, sister, aunt of Icelandic and Canary Islander descent who receives financial remuneration as a writer/researcher/artist/educator. She was born in Treaty 1 territory and spent over a decade living in London (UK). maya is now an uninvited guest on Kanien'kehá:ka territory where she preoccupies herself with writing and book cultures as a social practice. Critiquing or divesting from structures of institutional knowledge formation and validation are often the focus of her projects, from museum narratives to histories of social psychology and to community-based publishing. Experimental writing, performance, radical pedagogy, open-access publishing, DIY tactics and rogue archival gestures make up her tool-kit.

maya joined the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University in September 2017 as Assistant Professor in Art History. She now works across the Department of Studio Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies and is active in curricular development. She is the founder and co-director of OK Stamp Press, a mutual-aid book and publishing art project.

maya holds a PhD in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the London Consortium (Birkbeck College). Other things she has done: taught at the Royal College of Art, Imperial College London, and the Cass School of Art and Design; worked as a member of earnest, experimental art collectives; held various research positions at the Victoria & Albert Museum; began publishing and editing interdisciplinary projects, both within and beyond peer-review protocols (OK Stamp Press); served two terms as Executive Trustee for the Design History Society; performed in various art spaces including the Science Museum’s Dana Centre (London, UK), the Rag Factory (London, UK), and Cabinet (NYC).

Courses teaching at Concordia 2025-2026

FBRS480: Advanced Fibres
ARTX480: Advanced Integrated Studio Practice
DISP615: Directed Studio Practice
ASEM620: Publishing as Artist Method
ASEM620: Pedagogies of Care

Courses taught at Concordia 2017-2024