Christine Eyene (*1970) is an art historian, critic and curator.  She is Guild Research Fellow  –  Contemporary Art, University of Central Lancashire. Eyene studied History of Contemporary Art at Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne and earned a D.E.A (Diplôme d’Études Approfondies), supervised by Philippe Dagen, in 1999. She has been researching modern and contemporary South African art since the late 1990s, specialising in the story of artists in exile during Apartheid and their cultural interactions with the Black Diaspora in France and England. Her essays on this topic have examined the art of pioneering modernists Ernest Mancoba and Gerard Sekoto, as well as Dumile  Feni,  Gavin Jantjes and George Hallett. Her other areas of research include Britain’s Black Art (1980s), representations of the body, gender narratives, performance art and urban culture.

She has been visual arts co-editor of French journal  Africultures  since 2002 and has contributed to the field of contemporary African art through her writings in journals, exhibition catalogues and books. In 2010 she embarked in an international career as an independent curator. She was co-curator of Dak’Art 2012 – Biennale of Contemporary African Art and curator of the African selection of Photoquai 2011 – Biennial of World Images.

She has recently been appointed Guild Research Fellow  –  Contemporary Art, at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), joining the team of Making Histories Visible, an interdisciplinary visual  art research project based at UCLan’s Centre for Contemporary Art.

The Foundation for Arts Initiatives is an independent foundation supporting exceptional arts initiatives around the world. The FfAI curators grants aim to give curators the opportunity to explore and develop their own ideas outside the constraints of institutional or professional obligations. Recipients of these grants are curators, critics, writers, producers of artists’ work, and others who are active in organising projects in the visual arts. The FfAI has been making grants since 1999. It is directed by a small group of Trustees who are leaders of their own arts institutions in various parts of the world. FfAI’s independence is central to its work and identity. It is not connected to any government agency or official body.