Dr Kristina Wright

Kristina has worked as an independent curator and cultural heritage consultant for over twenty years. Her PhD research in Museum, Gallery and Heritage studies at the University of Leicester used comparative case studies in Kenya and South Korea to examine how the visual arts reinforce and promote urban and national identity, engage diverse communities, and foster cross-cultural interactions amid increasing engagement between Asia and Africa. As part of her practice-based research, Kristina curated a site-specific installation by the Korean arts collective Bang & Lee at Nafasi Art Space in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Kristina is currently the 2025 Okwui Enwezor Postdoctoral Fellow in Visual Culture, Performance Studies, and Critical Humanities at The Africa Institute of the Global Studies University in Sharjah, UAE

Expanding on her doctoral research about transcultural exchange through art, Kristina is developing an action research project tentatively titled What’s art got to do with it? Transnational narratives, cultural heritage and radical hospitality. Through a series of participatory art exhibitions and co-created workshops, this intersectoral study investigates migration and belonging amongst African diaspora communities in Europe as well as initiatives to decolonise the cultural and creative industries in various parts of the world.

• Wright, Kristina Dziedzic (2026) Transcultural Exchange through Art: Encountering Otherness in South Korea and Kenya. Routledge.
• Wright, Kristina Dziedzic (2024) ‘Imagined Encounters, Cultural Patterns and Intersections Between Africa and Asia’ in Asia-Africa-Multifaceted Engagement in the Contemporary World, ed. Ute Fendler and Yongkyu Chang. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Wright, Kristina Dziedzic (2023) ‘Decolonizing the National Museums of Kenya through Art’. Stedelijk Studies, 13.
• Wright, Kristina Dziedzic, Wright, David, Wiltshire, Nicholas and Lavin, Jenna (2023) ‘Digital Kitambo: Decolonising Narratives and Bringing the Past into the Future at the National Museums of Kenya’. Herança-History, Heritage and Culture Journal, 6(1), pages 115-131.
• Wright, Kristina Dziedzic (2019) ‘Global Korea, Multiculturalism and Discourses of Otherness: Cosmopolitanism and Contemporary Art Exhibits’ in What Do Museums Collect?, ed. Sunhee Jang. National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, pages 77-93.
• Wright, Kristina Dziedzic (2019) ‘The Museum as Classroom: Expanding the Boundaries of ESL Curriculum in Korea’ in Academics, Artists, and Museums: 21st-Century Partnerships, ed. Irina D. Costache and Clare Kunny. Routledge Press, pages 57-68.
• Wright, Kristina Dziedzic (2016) ‘North Korea on Display in Seoul: The NK Project and Imaginative Engagement through Art in the Twenty-First-Century Museum’. Museological Review 20, pages 73-83.
• Wright, Kristina Dziedzic (2009) Art, Culture, and Tourism on an Indian Ocean Island: An Ethnographic Study of Jua Kali Artists in Lamu, Kenya. Edwin Mellen Press.
• Wright, Kristina Dziedzic (2008) ‘Cleverest of the Clever: Coconut Craftsmen in Lamu, Kenya’. Journal of Modern Craft, 1(3), pages 323-343.

Kristina is currently teaching PhD and MA courses in museum and heritage studies at the Global Studies University in Sharjah, UAE. Kristina previously taught art history and academic writing at Ewha Women’s University and Seoul National University in South Korea and developed digital curricula for Hano Academy in Mogadishu, Somalia.

• ‘How did we get here? Ethics of representation and co-creative curatorial methods’, Artistic Research at Kristiania conference, 17-18 March 2025.
• ‘Korea ←→ Kenya: Transkulturell utveksling gjennom kunst’ (presentation in Norwegian), Norsk Selvskap Orientalsk Keramikk og Kunst, Oslo, Norway, 5 October 2024.
• ‘STEAM Ahead: Incorporating the Arts into STEM Curriculum in East Africa’, Somali STEM Summit, Mogadishu, Somalia (hybrid conference, delivered paper online), 7-9 August 2022.
• ‘Picturing the Future We Want: A Cross-Cultural Art Project about Climate Change’, Visual Intersections Summer School, Centre for Visual Arts and Culture, Durham University, 13-15 June 2022.
• ‘Cultural Patterns and Asia-Africa Intersections: Notes from an Artistic-Curatorial Exchange’. Multifaceted Relations: Africa-Asia workshop, University of Bayreuth, Germany, 2-3 July 2021.
• ‘Heritage digiscapes: A view from the National Museums of Kenya’, co-authored with David K. Wright. Reinvigorating Scandinavian Research in African Archaeology, Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences, conducted online 15 December 2020.
• ‘Constructing National Narratives through Modern and Contemporary Art in South Korea’. Academy for Korean Studies Program for Textbook Specialists in Europe, conducted online 17 October 2020.
• ‘Art Museums and Multiculturalism in South Korea: Representations of Otherness’. Thirteenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum, conducted online 3-5 September 2020.
• ‘Curating Things (and Non-Things): Nam Jun Paik’s The More, the Better’. Rethinking the Thing in the 21st Century transdisciplinary conference, Seoul National University, 17-19 October, 2019.
• ‘Encounters with Africa through Art in Korea’, Africa-Asia A New Axis of Knowledge interdisciplinary conference, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 20-22 September 2018.
• ‘Disentangling Narratives: Decolonisation at the National Museums of Kenya’, Art, Materiality and Representation conference, Royal Anthropological Institute, British Museum, London, 1-3 June 2018.
• ‘Korea/Kenya: Transcultural Conversations through Art’, TransCuratorial Academy, Goethe Institute, Mumbai, India, 18-22 September 2017.
• ‘Art Matters: The Visual Arts and Museums as TESOL Resources’, Dankook University’s 4th Annual Symposium on TESOL Research and Practises, South Korea, 22 October 2016.
• ‘Mediacity Seoul: Art and Urban Identity in the Digital Age’ in ‘Other Asias’ panel, College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, 12-15 February 2014.