TORONTO.- The Art Museum welcomed two new members to its team: Srimoyee Mitra as Senior Curator, Exhibitions and Programs, and Denise Birkhofer as Curator, Academic and Collections Initiatives.

Born in Mumbai, Srimoyee Mitra began her career as an arts writer in India for publications such as Art India and Time Out Mumbai before moving to Canada to pursue an MA in art history at York University in 2008. After serving as Program Coordinator at South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC) from 2008 to 2011, Mitra joined the Art Gallery of Windsor as Curator of Contemporary Art from 2011 to 2017, where she produced award-winning exhibitions such as Border Cultures (2013–2015), We Won’t Compete (2014), and Wafaa Bilal: 168:01 (2016). In 2017, she was appointed Director of Stamps Gallery at the University of Michigan, where her wide-ranging curatorial programs and innovative exhibitions such as LaToya Ruby Frazier: Flint Is Family In Three Acts, Stephanie Dinkins: On Love & Data, and Kelly Church & Cherish Parrish: In Our Words, An Intergenerational Dialogue garnered national and international recognition, including funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Mitra has participated in conferences and lectured across Canada and the United States, most recently at the Association of American Art Curators (2025), as well as the National Women’s Studies Conference (2024), the College Art Association (2023), and the Association of Academic Museums & Galleries (2022). Her writings have been published in North American journals and catalogues, and she has edited and published recent books such as Border Cultures (2015), Heidi Kumao: Real & Imagined (2022: Michigan Publishing), and Stephanie Dinkins: On Love & Data (2024: University of Michigan Press), among others.

Invested in building solidarity and mutual respect, Mitra has collaborated with trailblazing artists including Wafaa Bilal, Raqs Media Collective, Bonnie Devine, Adebunmi Gbadebo, CAMP, Ali Kazimi, Stephanie Dinkins, and Camille Turner. Her curatorial projects are catalysts for interdisciplinary inquiry, offering visual acuity and deep reflection on migration, statelessness, and sustainability, that create conditions for more ethical forms of public memory and care for one another.

“I am honoured to join the Art Museum at the University of Toronto as Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Programs,” says Srimoyee Mitra. “I am inspired by the museum’s role within a leading research university and its potential to connect artists, students, scholars, and publics through meaningful encounters with art. I look forward to building exhibitions and programs that are intellectually rigorous, socially responsive, and rooted in mutual respect, dialogue, care, and a commitment to building more just futures.”

Denise Birkhofer, who was appointed Assistant Professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information, joins the Art Museum as Curator, Academic and Collections Initiatives. In this cross-appointed role, Birkhofer will foster new collaborations between the Art Museum and the Master of Museum Studies program.

With a PhD in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, Birkhofer has more than fifteen years of professional experience in academic art museums, previously holding curatorial positions at the Grey Art Museum (NYU), the Allen Memorial Art Museum (Oberlin College), and the Image Centre (TMU). Her numerous exhibitions include Fred Wilson: Wildfire Test Pit (Oberlin, 2016) and The Faraway Nearby: Photographs of Canada from the New York Times Photo Archive (TMU, 2017, co-curated with Gerald McMaster).

Birkhofer’s expertise lies in modern and contemporary art and the photography of the Americas, encompassing Canada, the United States, and Latin America. Her research focuses on women artists, the intersections of performance and photography, and institutional collecting practices.

“I am thrilled to contribute to new initiatives in collections and academic engagement in this role at the Art Museum,” says Denise Birkhofer. “I look forward to working closely with academic departments across the University to support experiential learning and professional development opportunities for students, while also leading special projects with the Art Museum's vast and important collections.”

Barbara Fischer, Executive Director and Chief Curator at the Art Museum, is pleased to welcome the two new curators. “I am delighted to welcome Srimoyee and Denise to the Art Museum. With her deep roots in the Toronto art ecology, as well as wide-ranging curatorial leadership experience in artist-run, public, and academically embedded institutions, Srimoyee will bring new perspectives and transformational exhibitions and programs to the cultural and intellectual life of the University of Toronto campus and the city. Through Denise’s cross-appointment with Museum Studies and her long-standing curatorial work in the context of academic institutions, she will foster vitally important experiential learning opportunities for students, especially in the area of collections-based strategic initiatives. Together, these appointments significantly expand our engagement with the academic community and broaden our reach as a leading academically situated art museum in the country and internationally.”