Jennifer Liu, M.A., B.A.

Jennifer Liu is a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History at the University of Toronto in Canada. She is interested in artistic production and making, labour history, and conditions of work in artistic industries, with a focus on sculpture in seventeenth-century papal Rome. Her doctoral dissertation decentres the artist or sculptor from the centre of making to highlight Rome’s labourers who contributed significant time, knowledge, and skill to large-scale sculptures and monuments. Her doctoral research has been awarded the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (deferred to 2027). Outside of early modern sculpture, Liu’s interests include the making and materiality of Indigenous communities in Canada, and a world history of sculpture led by materials and techniques. 

Liu completed her master’s degree at McGill University, and her bachelor’s degree at the University of Toronto. Liu has also been a Research Assistant to Professor Evonne Levy since 2019 on the interdisciplinary project “The Technical Study of Bernini’s Bronzes: Art History, Conservation, Material Science.” In this role, she has contributed to technical studies of bronzes at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Fabbrica di San Pietro, the Basilica of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini, and VIVE – Palazzo Venezia. Liu was also an intern in the Department Weddigen in the spring of 2024 and has been a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto.