Cultural Threads: Archiving Black Art with Dr. Cheryl Thompson

We’re excited to introduce our new Seminar Series at Nia Centre.

We’re thrilled to welcome Dr. Cheryl Thompson for an engaging session on how Black cultural practices, across music, fashion, and performance, are archived and remembered.

Dr. Thompson will share her expertise in archiving cultural artifacts and speak to the importance of documenting Black creativity. This conversation will highlight how Black heritage and culture can be preserved and rediscovered through the archive.

Don’t miss this opportunity to deepen your understanding of the vital role archives play in sustaining Black art and cultural practices.

About Dr. Cheryl Thompson

Cheryl Thompson is an Academic, Public Speaker, Founder and Director of Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives (MOBA), a user-experience design platform that has created public access to Black archival collections in Ontario. She is also Director of Black Creative Lab, a digital platform that shares content on Black artists, dancers, writers, and researchers. As an Associate Professor, and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Black Expressive Culture & Creativity, she has secured multiple grants, including an Ontario Early Researcher award, and several Social Science Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grants. Thompson has authored four books – Staging Blackface in Canada: Public Amusements, Variety Shows, and Racial Acts in an Age of Imitation, 1898–1919 (April 2026); Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897 (2025), Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty (2021), and Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada’s Black Beauty Culture (2019). In 2021, she was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists for her contributions to Black Canadian studies.