The Daniels Faculty is pleased to announce that Gareth Long, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, has been appointed Director of Visual Studies for a two-and-a-half-year term, starting January 1 of this year and concluding on June 30, 2026. He takes over from Jean-Paul Kelly, who had led the VS programs since 2021.  

An accomplished artist whose diverse practice often questions traditional notions of creation and production—his latest exhibition, entitled Delaware Abstract Corporation, opened last week at Susan Hobbs Gallery in Toronto and runs until February 24—Long joined the Faculty as a Sessional Instructor in 2017 and was hired two years later as an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream.

In July of 2021, he assumed the role of Undergraduate Coordinator for the Honours Bachelor of Arts in Visual Studies (HBA VS) program. 

The Daniels Faculty offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in the discipline: the HBA in Visual Studies and two Masters (MVS) degrees—a Master of Visual Studies in Curatorial Studies and a Master of Visual Studies in Studio Art.

“My Immediate priorities,” says Long, “are to work with the excellent [VS] team to build on and further the stability of the department as well as the rich learning experience for students that has already been put in place.”

Regarding longterm goals, he says, “I am someone who really values the friendships, collegiality and networks that working together fosters, both in my work as an artist and in my professional work as an educator. I would love to draw on these networks to further build partnerships and new collaborative opportunities locally and abroad for both staff and students—much like the partnership I established last summer with Fogo Island Arts that allowed us to bring eight undergraduate Visual Studies students to Fogo Island for a 10-day Studies Abroad course. Through this and other efforts, I hope that we can raise the visibility of our remarkable programs.”

According to Long, “Visual Studies at both the undergraduate and graduate levels offer a unique approach to art at a research university—and not just any research university, but one of the top research institutions in the world. As such, we try to take advantage of the rich and varied research-based academic ecology in asking students to situate themselves and their practices in our specific contemporary moment. Students must address complex and critical questions about what it means to make and exhibit work in our current milieux.”

The cross-pollination between Visual Studies and Architecture, he adds, “expands students’ view of art, contemporary practices, the built environment, questions of publics and how their work can and will interface with said publics, bringing more voices with varied practices into their orbits.”