Blake Smith

Blake E. Smith is a practicing photographer and mixed media artist who is passionate about creativity in all forms. She is committed to helping students achieve their greatest potential and discover their own creative path in and through art education. Her background includes extensive art teaching experience from elementary to post-secondary, curating the Lobby Gallery at the Liu Institute for Global Issues and serving as faculty advisor and practicum supervisor at the University of British Columbia. 

Smith’s interests are interdisciplinary, centering around photo-based inquiry and photo education as well as visual life writing, visual journals, a/r/tography, teacher education, ethics, collaboration, the graduate student experience, mental health, creative writing and the poetics of learning. Her experience as a high school and university photography teacher significantly informs her work and teaching, as she seeks to connect theory to practice in a meaningful way. 

She has published in the Journal of Visual Inquiry and the Marilyn Zurmuehlen Working Papers in Art Education. Her PhD dissertation, Being Against Disappearance: A Photographic Inquiry Through an A/r/tographic Lens, was awarded the Ted T. Aoki Prize for Outstanding Dissertation in Curriculum Studies from UBC and the 2020 Graduate Research Award for Outstanding PhD Dissertation from the Arts Researchers and Teachers Society of Canada.