0:03

so welcome everyone um we’ve already started as you can hear the conversation’s already begun and i

0:09

really would like to keep it conversational so um i’m gonna do a brief introduction and

0:15

it’s really great to see everyone thank you all for joining us and welcome to the students who are also part of

0:21

tonight’s event my name is shauna mccabe and i’m the director of the art gallery of guelph

0:26

and i’d like to welcome you all as well as our guests sally froeder tackle cartridge and vince rosario

0:33

i’m really looking forward to this conversation tonight to begin i’d like to offer land acknowledgement on behalf of the art

0:39

gallery of guelph which is hosting this dialogue this statement is really crucial for cultural institutions um because it

0:46

really confronts the ongoing effects of colonialism that underpins the history of institutions

0:52

like museums and art museums not only have these institutions utilize deeply colonial methods of

0:58

representation but because of their authority these narratives have been accepted as truth and forming policies and practices

1:06

wealth is situated on treaty land that has steeped in rich indigenous history and home to many first nations inuit met

1:13

people today we acknowledge that the art gallery of guelph resides on the traditional territory of the mississaugas of the credit first nation

1:20

of the anishinaabeg peoples who are the ancestral holders and today the treaty holders of this land

1:26

we recognize the significance of the dish with one spoon covenant to this land and offer our respect for anishnari

1:32

honeshoni and metis neighbors as we strive to strengthen our relationships with them

1:37

we express our gratitude and recognize a responsibility for the stewardship of the land on which we live work and

1:43

create and as we’re all gathered virtually today connected and yet physically dispersed

1:49

it’s also a good moment to recognize how the different traditional lands we reside in and move through and form our

1:54

lives and we acknowledge the elders past present and future of these lands with gratitude and respect

2:01

a few details everyone has been muted for this conversation and we invite you to use the chat area

2:07

for any questions for the curators and we will turn to the questions after the conversation

2:13

um but do feel free if you put them in the chat we’ll also deal with them as as we go along as well

2:19

um so tonight we’re talking about um curatorial practice

2:25

uh hang on like my nose just jumped um and curation um and about care and this

2:31

was sort of the the kind of thought i had sort of posed to our three guests tonight

2:36

um the term curator itself originates um in the latin term curo which means to

2:41

care for and that has obviously shifted over over time it’s meeting um you know obviously

2:48

originated associated with objects to care for

2:54

and today it’s very much the care of relationships and a guiding principle for curators of

3:01

contemporary art today in many contexts and ethics of care with attention to the relationships between

3:07

artists and creative practices and communities and an aim to support wider social change

3:14

and at the same time we might ask that while care may be embedded in the act of curatorial practice is it something that

3:21

is actually considered in the act of curating in contemporary institutions and when is it considered and how

3:28

so tonight we’ll look at notions of stewardship and relationship and beyond the work of these three curators whose

3:34

exhibitions are currently on view at the art gallery of guelph projects that offer nuanced explorations

3:40

of distinct colonial histories and anti-colonial approaches so to introduce everyone um sally

3:46

froeder is uh key forward here

3:53

sally frater is the curator of contemporary art at the art gallery of guelph she holds an honors ba in studio art

4:00

from university of guelph and an m.a in contemporary art from the university of manchester sotheby’s institute of art

4:07

the former curator of modern and contemporary art at the ulrich center sorry museum of art she has also

4:13

organized exhibitions for illuminato mccall center for art and innovation the

4:19

glassell school of art at the museum of fine arts of houston project row houses justina

4:24

barney gallery at the university of toronto the print studio center 3 and a space gallery

4:31

she’s a former core critical studies fellow at the glass cells museum sorry the glossell

4:37

school at the museum of fine arts houston and recently curated the exhibition interweavings at center three for

4:43

artistic social and social practice she’s involved in a number of curatorial collaborations um and she’ll tell you

4:50

what her curatorial practice centers on in a second um i’ll just go through these are some

4:56

of the exhibitions that sally has curated for the art gallery of guelph this is samuel brewster

5:02

um this is not for the art gallery of guelph but with in conjunction with native art department international

5:07

topics of appreciation at center three this was at the art gallery of guelph uh

5:13

the collective decolonized this place when we breathe we breathe together

5:19

and this is the current exhibition dewey el petros which is on view currently

5:27

and another view of that exhibition

5:34

takala partridge is a nook curator artist and performer from nunavut often incorporating spoken word and

5:41

throat singing her performance practice focuses on inuit experiences and ontologies both in

5:47

the north and the south as well as her work as an artist her writing has been featured in several

5:53

magazines and was she was selected as the first nook editor at large at m4 inuit art quarterly she

6:01

was recently named the director of the nordic lab which is an experimental research and production space designed

6:07

to foster collaboration between indigenous and non-indigenous groups in the arctic and that is based on the

6:13

saw gallery in ottawa she has also created a number of projects including those of the art

6:19

gallery of ontario and the art gallery of guelph among others these are this is a project

6:26

for the art gallery of ontario featuring featuring canon captain pizzelok

6:34

this is an exhibition how to match every day every day in the art gallery of guelph

6:41

and this is the uh images from the current exhibition inusira tara lake duffy with pizza kashuna

6:51

fighter exhibition uh this was your your installation

6:58

outside the finale of sydney from 2020. so writing just to sort of highlight

7:05

that writing is a big part of your work and this interest in inuit experiences

7:10

run through runs through everything writing to curatorial to performance

7:18

finally vince rosario is an independent critic curator writer arts administrator

7:23

and community organizer who’s based in toronto he was born in bangladesh raised in

7:29

dubai and eventually settling in canada they attempt to map out trajectories of modernism queerness and the colonial

7:35

futures across transnational axes they have presented territorial projects

7:41

at xbase cultural center gladstone hotel and the canadian filmmakers distribution center as well as contributing to

7:48

exhibitions texts for whippersnapper gallery inter-access and gallery 44.

7:53

they were the winner of the 2018 c new critics award and published criticism in

7:59

c magazine and moma’s they currently serve on the whippersnapper gallery board of

8:04

directors and in 2021 vince was awarded the middlebrook prize for young canadian curators with mitra fakashrafi

8:11

producing the exhibition collective offerings at the art gallery of guelph is this exhibition

8:25

several views of that installation and some other projects

8:31

unvanishing traces of xspace

8:37

again this off-site installation

8:43

so there we go so i’m just going to like leave these images up so we can return to them as we talk

8:50

um so you know we’re talking about curating um but it’s

8:56

as much a discussion of how art can forge crucial and critical dialogues

9:01

around history identity and social justice and i’m wondering um you know uh we can start with you you

9:09

sort of speaking to your exhibitions about um you know what what you think the possibilities for curating is in the

9:15

contemporary moment um and obviously relationships is a big part of this and we’ve kind of raised that in different

9:23

iterations already in this conversation um but how you think about relationships and and creating these exhibitions and

9:29

how they shape the work in the images we see here so tucker look do you want books

9:37

so sally do you want to go first i’m sure

9:42

um i guess

9:49

in terms of i’m not even sure what part of that because that was kind of this broad overarching statement to begin

9:55

with um so in terms of i guess what i can just say is that in terms of um

10:00

[Music] working with uh

10:08

when i approach um artists to work on a project

10:14

it’s usually either that i’m i have a premise that i’m interested in or a

10:23

preposition and or sort of a question that i want to have answered

10:29

and then or it could be that i’m intrigued by a particular artist or collective’s

10:38

practice and so usually um

10:46

point of collaboration or relationship building begins with an invitation to engage and to work collaboratively

10:54

and and i was thinking i was thinking about this and i was thinking about this notion of being like a steward

11:01

for curators and um i was thinking about how

11:08

i was mainly thinking about it at first in terms of how i build relationships with artists and this could be something

11:19

it’s usually through this sort of process of um kind of

11:25

having an invitation to have a sort of preliminary conversation and then there’s usually a process

11:30

through which you either and it doesn’t always unfold this way but for me frequently there’s this sort of process

11:36

in which you know an artist will speak about their work and their practice and then i’ll

11:42

occasionally i will speak about the work that i do as a curator because it’s sort of like we’re entering into this i don’t

11:50

want to say like a dance but you’re you’re you’re um you’re kind of opening up this dialogue

11:56

in which you’re both to different extents um

12:01

beginning to reveal things about yourself to the other and you’re about to embark on

12:08

what is what can be it’s not always but what can be this very sort of um

12:14

intimate engagement and and there’s a way in which it’s really

12:21

interesting because i remember when i was first starting out as a curator or i was interested in working as a curator

12:27

when i was much younger and i had a colleague whose partner was a curator and this person kept telling

12:33

me you know curating is a lot of administrative work it’s a lot of administrative work

12:39

and it is but then there’s this whole other part to it

12:45

um which is about sort of negotiating relationships and

12:51

and doing this this sort of intimate work of um

12:56

both revealing and discovering and in terms of um [Music]

13:02

so i see it it’s usually more of sort of this kind of back and forth um

13:08

process where sort of i can propose something that artists will respond and then i respond to that and it could be

13:16

this could be in terms of um it could be like this is a you know a curatorial

13:23

um rubric that i put forth to them and then they might respond to it and

13:29

then i will respond through either interpreting the work through a didactic

13:34

or writing or it could be a tour and then sometimes it’s it’s more along

13:39

the lines of i get to know um i’ll get to know an artist’s

13:46

practice and i’ll get to know an artist and then i’ll kind of propose how i’m interpreting the work

13:52

and with delete’s current exhibition that’s up um prospero amari that was a bit

13:58

different because this is part of a three

14:04

sort of a three-part um or sort of an exhibition

14:11

it’s this body of work is the second of three exhibitions that are that are sort of

14:17

interrogating this extended um premise and so the artist had a very clear idea

14:25

of of how of what the exhibition would be of what

14:31

works would be produced in terms of how it would be laid out and so

14:37

my role in this project was more that of a facilitator

14:42

but there there were certain points where i did sort of um weigh in on on the layout but it was

14:48

a very it was a very different process but one of the things um

14:54

to sort of respond to an earlier point that you raised that i did do with this is

15:00

um the way that dawid works like he’s interested in these these um like very broadly to describe his practice he’s

15:07

interested in language and in history um and in these intersections between

15:12

uh notions of of the modern and migration um and africa and there are things that

15:22

and of course all of these questions or these explorations they lend themselves to probing notions of colonialism

15:31

and and looking at these kind of um [Music]

15:37

intersections between are these kind of entanglements between um the sort of broader project

15:44

of modernity and colonialism and so and and photography

15:49

and the sort of role that photography plays in that so there were points um

15:57

the things that he was exploring they were things that they they were things that um

16:04

that also intersected with things that i’m interested in exploring as well but it was a very it was a very different

16:09

way of working

16:26

sorry vince i i didn’t have my knee job vince do you want to speak next

16:34

oh you need sorry hi um to the idea of curating and

16:41

care specifically yeah and maybe relationships sure yeah um

16:48

so in a lot of ways i kind of accidentally fell into curating i mean not quite

16:54

thankfully it was early enough on in my education so i started school for architecture realized i wasn’t a very

17:00

good draftsman um and then realized i liked art history more um

17:06

and had the opportunity to see an exhibition being put up at the guggenheim and sort of go behind the scenes and see all those fun things um

17:13

and before realizing that that is like the top one percent of the one percent um in the art world and that’s not

17:18

necessarily how things work um that said though it did kind of

17:24

spark an interest in um like late modernist relational practices

17:31

um and so you know i’ve been following kind of artist groups like the kutai or you know

17:38

boxes and other kind of sort of clusters accumulations of artists

17:44

um and then of course due to the relative precarity of arts

17:50

work um in this financial climate um

17:56

after i left school i um found myself curating less and working

18:03

in groups of kind of creatives more like uh

18:09

i co-founded a grassroots diy arts festival um called bricks and glitter

18:15

which is affiliated to a space called unit 2 which is um in west end toronto it’s a diy space it’s kind of the last

18:22

one of the last of its kind in a lot of ways toronto had this great proliferation of kind of diy spaces

18:29

between the 90s and roughly about 2010 2011 um when you know

18:35

sort of progressive waves of gentrification began sort of displacing them um

18:41

and so a lot of my uh

18:46

sort of methodologies come are informed by those contacts right um these kind of

18:53

places where you find encounters between people who are like a

18:59

vastly different kind of socioeconomic locations um have vastly different politics and

19:05

and you find ways of kind of negotiating between all of that um

19:11

and and i guess the point of the exercise ultimately

19:17

becomes to focus on a common end uh a common sort of basis of solidarity

19:22

and to move forward that way and that’s very much what bricks and glitter became about um

19:28

you know we were sort of uh a whole generation of like malkathons who weren’t being represented by pride

19:35

toronto so we came at it from very different places um and then we sort of all collectively

19:42

settled on this idea of building resources and infrastructure for emerging queer artists many of whom of course are

19:48

underrepresented in many ways um and so

19:54

collaboration has kind of been at the heart of most like curatorial projects that i’ve done so unbanishing traces

20:01

which is on screen right now um i collaborated with uh sanji dylan

20:06

a good friend of mine and a very talented curator um

20:12

and that came out of a very kind of personal encounter with lost um

20:17

kind of it was trying to come to terms with

20:24

um these spectacularized mediated debts which sort of came in very quick succession

20:30

that year um between um colton bushi and

20:36

you know the bruce mcarthur murders a lot of it was like felt really intensely in the community of people that i was um

20:42

you know um engaged with um so this exhibition really was an attempt to

20:49

think through um the violences which we compound on people when we sort of engage in these

20:56

like sort of culturally sanctioned forms of mourning and remembering right the ways we erase the complexity of their

21:01

lives and the ways in which we uh sort of

21:08

inevitably contribute to like an ongoing cycle of violence and how can you sort of use visual and mediated means of

21:14

disrupting that um all this to sort of say that um

21:20

generally speaking in terms of curatorial propositions and perhaps this is

21:25

a bit of a product of ego and inexperience they tend to be um

21:30

issues that affect me directly quite quite forcefully um

21:35

and so from that i tend to turn to the people around me who i know are also thinking

21:42

through or feeling through these things and we get together and start working on something

21:47

um and that’s very much what collective offerings was about um

21:53

uh it was this moment where

21:58

so many kinds of physical collectivity that we sort of nurtured in different community spaces fell away

22:04

um and suddenly there was this urgency not only to connect but to support each other and you know we were seeing

22:11

a ground swell of like mutual aid movements it was really quite beautiful for a very brief moment and then

22:16

everything was soured and now we have truckers um protesting um

22:23

like oh god so much hope um so it was really inspired by that moment

22:30

and it was inspired by um

22:35

uh ways of finding

22:40

kind of alternatives to collecting to collectivizing and thinking together and kind of finding ways of attuning both

22:46

with with the land with each other with ourselves um and to kind of try to fight

22:52

this like compartmentalization that sets in when you kind of start applying capitalist and colonial logics

22:58

onto this kind of work um and so i was really inspired by the work

23:04

of a lot of my friends who were doing that kind of work for example the centerpiece of the show

23:10

is um tries to latiffs how i learned to serve tea and tries to was running this

23:16

project both in kind of theater spaces but also at community centers as like the the

23:23

sort of uh ostensible reason was that she was teaching newcomers english spoken

23:29

english but it was actually a way of getting them to think about the power

23:34

structures that they were being called into um in this like network of agencies and

23:39

sort of uh settlement procedures and how they manage kind of um these populations

23:45

um and you know in very early on in the project it became very clear that it could not be like a

23:51

solo endeavor curatorially at least um and so

23:57

um i teamed up with mitra who has you know um

24:02

a wonderful record of kind of bringing people together and and really understanding

24:08

how to intentionally create community in a space um and

24:14

collaboratively we were able to create something that that could speak to those complex needs

24:21

um without necessarily tokenizing these practices without necessarily um

24:28

sort of illustrating things um through the work but rather providing

24:35

little kernels little strategies things that people can take away and and and bring into their social lives into their

24:42

everyday lives so that was kind of broadly speaking and that’s kind of how i tend to

24:48

navigate relationships uh professionally that said i think it’s really difficult

24:53

when you work with friends who are as precarious as you often um

24:59

and there is kind of this line between like affective labor um which is you know you interacting

25:04

with them with them as a curator and then like you know actually just like being their friend um and how do you

25:10

kind of navigate between the two um and that’s something i’m still learning

25:16

to figure out um and overall mostly i’ve curated group

25:22

shows the idea has been to try to bring the work in conversation somehow

25:29

and so it ends up being quite site-specific the how i learned to serve tea installation was developed specifically

25:36

for this space as was uh miche blocky and christina kingsbury’s project

25:42

um which is a an event score uh for a walk

25:47

along the aramosa river which christina has been um

25:52

engaging with and caring for that piece of land for like a very long time um in

25:58

her own kind of way um and sort of pairing that with meech who also um

26:05

looks at kind of you know ways of creating non-extractive relationships with the land ways of kind of existing in symbiosis

26:12

and of course so much of that is indebted to indigenous knowledge um

26:18

and yeah we were able to even through the course of this project um and this was some of one of the really beautiful

26:24

things that came out of it is we were able to bring meech and christina together and they um really ran with it

26:30

they created this very rich body of research around their own kind of

26:37

respective bodies of knowledge around this work and we were able to create this

26:42

beautiful poetic text that i hope can kind of live on past the duration of the exhibition

26:48

so yeah that’s kind of i guess how i navigate relationships in this kind of practice

26:56

i know i know you had a lot of conversations like even throughout the development selection of the work the

27:01

development of each work the support for each work so yeah which are ongoing really

27:08

yeah it’s been a constant negotiation because of covid and like health restrictions um

27:14

yeah i mean we knew which artists we wanted to work with and we had a broad contour of what projects we were going

27:20

to bring into this space but ultimately it was always just like negotiating with like what was there um

27:26

and i’m trying to figure out a way of kind of formalizing that methodology like a certain kind of

27:32

fugitivity and responsiveness that can be adaptive and mobile i think

27:38

the traditional way in which you’re taught how to curate tends to be quite like static in some ways um think about

27:44

objects in a space over a long duration of time to think about um

27:50

development from the pro from the perspective of kind of arranging objects um and so i’m trying to understand

27:57

different ways of approaching that as well and so this was a sort of ongoing endeavor in that process

28:04

thanks

28:12

can you sort of repeat the gist of yours well i was gonna say i mean i think

28:18

even just thinking about you know the development of this this exhibition and this exhibition i mean you’re working

28:25

with people you know you know you know their work um so in terms of like the relationships that you’re you’re kind of

28:32

you already have the relationships and the exhibitions are emerging from from those

28:37

um maybe you want to speak about this project just

28:42

yes so that exhibition was part of um

28:48

my kind of uh not intervention what’s the word

28:55

the activity that i did in connection with the residency that i was doing with musa gettys

29:00

um as you know uh i work with el wood jimmy i’ve worked with with jimmy who’s a

29:08

wonderful curator artist thinker writer

29:14

and you know we’ve become really good friends but um i first started working with him as an artist he had me

29:21

took over to toronto for some performances and then in conjunction with that uh

29:28

residency um [Music] we were looking for a space to put on this show and

29:34

of course shawna you offered that space at their gallery of guelph and that’s what brought me to where i am today

29:42

um that show was really have them on is you know every day or

29:48

every single day um i wanted to show

29:55

uh images from inuit life that are

30:01

just that people share on social media that are just um pictures that are not necessarily meant

30:07

to be beautiful but they can end up being beautiful and they just show inner perspectives

30:14

about things and i feel that in it have very particular in it way of looking at things

30:19

um and then some of these photographers are actually actually work as photographers and some of them are just people

30:27

uh who you know take photos with even like an older version of an ipod

30:34

um in all the work that i and all the exhibitions that i do i really

30:40

want to center inrate voices inner perspectives and to have them presented in ways that

30:48

are legible and

30:54

else can you know experience them from those perspectives

31:02

so this one like i said it’s about um inuit perspectives about everyday life

31:09

and what people value in their everyday lives

31:15

as inuit living in the north and living elsewhere

31:20

um some people though didn’t send me photos that i asked for because they were kind of embarrassed by

31:26

them like i really like some people post pictures of the dirty dishes in the sink for example like frequently they say oh

31:32

look at this huge pile of dishes you know because my family was over

31:39

and we all had like this big meal or whatever like they were too embarrassed

31:44

so that the negotiating part in this thing was like trying to get people to understand that no i do want the photos

31:50

of the everyday things and they can be blurry and they can be something that’s almost uninteresting

31:57

like look at the mess the puppy made in the porch you know they ripped up all these plastic bags like i wanted that photo

32:04

but i couldn’t get it out of this one person because they were like why why would you want that

32:11

so i mean like this it’s not necessarily art the way that we think of art but for

32:17

me it’s there is some kind of creative um

32:24

force in in any of these things that we do where we end up making something and taking a photo is making something

32:32

so that’s what that one was about and one of the artists in this show was tara like duffy

32:40

and then i guess also just to say sort of out of this exhibition um i approached attacker

32:47

like about doing taking this idea of how to match and every day every day

32:53

um and make it much bigger because i had to recognize that idea as being so key to

33:00

the inuit work in our collection and and sort of manifest in many different ways and so

33:06

we’re that exhibition is going to be uh will be on view starting like april late

33:12

april early may um and so um but in the process so takeover began a residency with us um

33:19

and has been working with with us in the adjunct curator kind of thinking and looking at our collection and developing

33:25

this exhibition and as part of that we kind of decided to do this

33:32

but this came out of a conversation that we’ve had for teralych right so dr duffy is um

33:39

also a good friend of mine also somebody that i met initially through um

33:44

artistic practice work stuff but we happen to be named after the same

33:50

person and in inuit culture this means that we have a connection to each other in a relation

33:56

um that is particular to that kind of naming

34:01

we’re uh which is like we’re parts of a whole

34:06

so all the people there’s many people named after this late elder um

34:12

who she was a woman but uh the in innovative the traditional names don’t have a gender

34:17

so it could have been anybody but it was a woman um and she has many namesakes i guess their names except the

34:24

ones who are named after the namesake are they also namesakes anyway any many people named after her

34:31

uh including lots of her relatives and you know there’s a young man that i know and

34:37

um anyway so we have that name connection but we also uh you know we grew up in

34:44

sort of similar places although we didn’t grow up together we grew up with a lot of similar

34:49

experiences in the you know in the 80s and the 90s and um

34:55

one of the things that we had in common was just really really adoring the work of patilla asuna

35:01

so there’s book pictures of my life that is also part of the exhibition it’s a well-known book in

35:08

in the inner art world anyway well-known book by dorothy eber um

35:14

from the 19th right early 70s and i as a child would spend so many

35:21

hours looking at this book of course not reading the text but just looking at the pictures

35:26

and being so fascinated by the fact that there were pictures by an in a made with felt pen

35:34

in a book like an actual book like that and i think that she had very similar

35:40

thoughts about that and and just i could picture even though they’re just kind of simple graphic

35:48

drawings they’re so for me they’re so rich with information and i could as a child i

35:54

could picture what was happening in those photos and i could picture the feelings

36:00

um i could feel the things that they would look for example the photo in

36:06

in that on the right the big image by petra

36:12

mosquitoes are these giant very simply drawn forms but i know that feeling of

36:17

the mosquitoes being huge and many and just things that you can’t get away from in

36:23

the summer in the north um and then so we shana and i were talking about well what could this next

36:30

kind of iteration of

36:35

the title for a new zealand we chose and i chose together

36:40

um i had invited her to [Music] um

36:47

do some image draw some images kind of in response to the work by patilla she was already doing

36:54

images that were kind of of a similar vein anyway but then she created new works

37:01

specifically for this show and i’m really happy with the result

37:07

i think for me it’s like i said it’s just it’s always i want to see as much as possible in a

37:14

um in these spaces that are not that have oftentimes shown innate work but wholly

37:22

divorced from innovate people and i want to see work uh presented by inuit made by inuit

37:30

described by inuit and accessible to you know in ways that um you know the inuit art

37:37

movement has maybe not necessarily taken our community members into account before

37:45

and that’s sort of informing the summer exhibition as well

37:52

the one to come you want me to talk about that sure you can talk about it well i mean the next

37:57

the so the last kind of uh installment of how the mod is this bigger one on the main floor for

38:03

starting in spring until through summer and that has many more of the works that are already part of the ag

38:10

agg collection and also um i’ve invited several

38:15

artists from various innovate communities to contribute new work so to have that work alongside these

38:23

older works in the collection um to kind of

38:29

have them speak to each other and to present present their work in

38:36

ways that i feel are meaningful to innovate

38:42

and sometimes i think my approach is like a little bit

38:48

what’s the word simple like i really like pop art for example um

38:55

but it’s just for me it’s just about valuing those things that are valuable

39:00

to unite um and not really worrying about what

39:07

uh what they’re in contrast to i guess it’s just it’s really just about that what what what do you know like

39:20

and vince you said you had heard tucker like in a in a talk

39:26

yeah i mean so actually it’s so it’s so lovely being on the panel with you

39:31

because uh for unbanishing traces actually um so i know i knew of chocolate through

39:39

elwood as well um is that missing eddies and guelph um

39:45

and elwood had shared this poem by chakralik

39:52

and it was it was just like this kind of even

39:59

it was it was about kind of people witnessing what was happening in the media at the time with colton boucher’s

40:05

murder um and it was just like you know even the doctors even the nurses even the people

40:11

so it’s this kind of yeah so i i think

40:18

that poem inspired me so much in in trying to think about you know these these forms

40:24

of collective mourning um the shock of that moment and how you come to terms with it

40:29

um how you bring your own narrative histories to it um so in that way

40:36

equilix work has been informative to now like both of the large shows that i’ve

40:41

curated um and then uh two springs last spring last spring i

40:48

was in a class um where we were adapting tuna kushini into like a virtual format um for anna hudson

40:56

and um chocolate and the curators of the show uh kind of spoke to us about like what

41:03

consensus-based curating looks like um and how you kind of work through sort of

41:09

a show as a group um and that’s something that i really took away uh for collective offerings because

41:16

it wouldn’t be a singular vision in that way so

41:24

yes other i guess there’s sort of like the there’s the conceptual genealogies right but

41:30

this is how we’re influenced by by others and each other

41:35

um do you think i guess i mean empathy plays a big piece of this um and i think

41:42

you know i know for you vince that was sort of um you know it’s been making sure that the

41:48

the exhibition uh collective offerings is is um dealing with um

41:54

you know this moment but there’s also this sort of like senate sense of um empathy and kind of um

42:02

uh like a different sort of a different level of relationship right um you know

42:08

facilitation um support

42:14

yeah i mean i think it’s so difficult to enact though within like the way we do

42:20

exhibitions you know in the sense that there are production schedules and

42:26

timelines and kind of um you know the cycle of grants

42:31

um materially kind of showing up for people sometimes can be really difficult um

42:38

and in order to kind of supplement that i think i tried as much as i could um

42:45

to sort of also contribute sort of labor towards developing different artist practices um

42:51

you know whether it was through offering like grant writing help or things like that um

42:57

it’s been really nice also kind of getting to share space with the artists like just like having meals with them like last week um

43:05

meech who lives in portland uh was in town and i went with them to go see christina

43:11

and we sort of had a meal together and it was really lovely christina made um this beautiful uh

43:18

dinner for us um yeah i mean i think

43:24

ultimately i don’t know if i necessarily think of

43:29

it as empathy so much as like it’s finding a collective way of dealing

43:36

with the scarcity and precarity that i guess a lot of arts workers face and

43:42

trying to sort of keep these relationships intact because for me that seems to be the only way

43:48

that you can build a platform of sorts um

43:54

and also as an antidote to the kind of the model minority culture that we’ve sort of established

43:59

um in the arts especially in canada i’d say um

44:06

so yeah i don’t know if i if i necessarily see it as i think it would be disingenuous to call it empathy in some ways because it is after all a

44:13

professional and material relationship at the end of the day um so at least in a work context i i think

44:22

of it as like collectively working towards something and then finding an alignment

44:27

um certainly like outside of that in terms of our personal relationship absolutely there’s a lot of care there

44:33

and um and which is mutual very much um i felt as held by the artists that i

44:40

worked with uh on this show as yeah as the expectation would have been for

44:46

me sally um i know that you have done i

44:53

want to just pull out the so this i mean so working with decolonize this place you want to talk

45:00

about that project a bit because it was another one that kind of took a very different format um you know how the

45:06

exhibition came together what’s in the exhibition um

45:16

well again this project this project was interesting because of um

45:24

it was the last um [Music] project that i

45:30

brought forward um

45:36

the from the i guess from the first time that i worked at the art gallery of guelph

45:41

and i had been i had been familiar with decolonized this place

45:47

from my time during the states i had read about a number of projects that they had done a number of actions that they were involved in

45:54

and um [Music] and it was interesting because i had done i had done a number of projects

46:01

including there’s a slide that there’s documentation of um

46:07

sandra brewster exhibition token token contemporary ongoing and then i

46:14

did a project with maria hutfield like the first three exhibitions that i worked with they were dealing with

46:19

colonization um these kind of histories or kind of residual effects of colonization in very

46:27

different ways and from different geographical regions

46:33

and then i did a project with um

46:39

with carolina quesado two different

46:44

installations but they were dealing with they were again they were dealing with sort of like this this uh

46:52

they were sort of taking on this kind of approach to exploring issues of

46:57

colonization and then um [Music]

47:03

i had been kind of i had been wanting to do a project with

47:08

decolonize this place i had been working on a i was part of a steering committee and

47:15

we had invited them to come and speak at a at a sort of series of workshops

47:22

um called the reception that took place in hamilton and and we weren’t able to to work that

47:28

out but i had been wanting to do something with them and then it kind of popped into my head and it sort of made sense in terms of all of the exhibitions

47:34

that i had been looking at to to be working with this collective that

47:40

was dealing with like dealing with this kind of all of these different threads of

47:45

colonization and and the space of the institution whether it was a museum or

47:51

um a university or different you know other types of institutions in this very overt way it

47:57

was it was really kind of like you know this i don’t know i

48:03

i still haven’t figured out how to like sort of articulate that but the thing that was interesting about working with

48:09

them is they were open to doing a project but they’re like we we don’t really make work for institutions

48:15

and they didn’t want to do something that was just this archive

48:20

of past projects that they had done so what they they decided to actually we had talked about doing that and then

48:26

they they decided that they wanted to sort of use this this opportunity to sort of

48:32

look back at some of the things that they had done and and people that they had

48:38

collaborated with and um actions that they had taken and what

48:44

was successful about them and so it was an opportunity for them as a collective to kind of look inward but then also

48:50

to do what it what it is that they often do which is to collaborate with

48:56

with others in action and one of the things that was interesting was that some some of the people who they had

49:03

collaborated with such as um nikinak miglands and maria hubfield

49:08

and uh jason lujan were now here well in ontario and so they were based

49:16

in new york and and it was very much about um

49:22

[Music] kind of like i need to describe what they did they

49:28

had a series of talks in addition to to the installation because a lot of

49:35

people couldn’t come be to see the show because as soon as the show opened we we went into another lockdown and so

49:42

the way to kind of experience a lot of the things that they were exploring through this this um exhibition which included a

49:49

periodical that went along with it was to have a moment to engage online so when

49:54

we’re thinking about this uh you know curating as facilitating for me it was kind of like

50:00

you know i really again i was sort of i took a back seat and i was more of a facilitator and help them

50:06

um to sort of bring things together and that was that was an extremely rewarding

50:12

project for me um [Music] it was just really

50:20

we’re it’s interesting because we’re talking about building relationships but then as curators you don’t really talk

50:25

about what it is that you get out of working with people and

50:30

one of the things usually the majority of times when i do a project it’s something

50:36

that’s really fulfilling for me and i was reading this um piece i can’t remember who the author’s name was today

50:44

and she was writing about um this sort of movement to ban books in

50:49

the states and she and she was reflecting on i think this this person was raised in a very sort of uh

50:56

christian and conservative she had a very christian and conservative upbringing and um she was talking about her

51:02

relation to books and how um uh

51:08

certain things there were attempts by like the librarian at her school

51:13

and her family to prevent her from reading certain things but she was saying that

51:18

that for so many people books

51:24

provide an opportunity to see reflections of your own experience

51:32

and have them be affirmed and you’re getting basically your own experience your own

51:37

identity yourself affirmed by um

51:43

i guess in literary forms and i’m bringing that up to say that this is something that happens with curating and

51:49

the way that i didn’t talk about any of the slides that we’ve shown about these past projects

51:54

um because i was more interested in kind of talking about what it is that curating does but you know what i’m i’ve known

52:01

sandra brewster for a while i think we first met him i can’t even remember when we first met

52:07

it might have been 2006 or something and my understanding of her work has really grown and shifted and when i first met

52:13

sandra she’d probably get mad at me for saying that she was very reluctant to kind of speak about her work and she’s

52:19

not in in the same way or maybe she was just reluctant with me but one of the things that i kind of realized was i

52:26

come to this work with um it’s not that i don’t need to think about it or i don’t need to research it

52:32

or i don’t need to ask the artist how she’s positioning it or what she’s thinking of but because we’re both

52:38

we’re both um the first generation daughters of parents from the caribbean

52:44

there there’s this certain sort of cultural knowledge that you bring forward to the work and when taclick was

52:50

speaking and i think this is something that you think about as well you have this again as a steward you feel this

52:56

kind of sense of responsibility to um and this care that you’re bringing

53:01

forward to the objects because the they’re the result of someone’s labor they’re the result of someone’s um

53:09

it can be speaking to where they’re located there is so much um sort of

53:15

i don’t want to um i don’t want to sort of over sentiment

53:21

over sentimentalize these things but there’s something that’s very um it’s sort of like i hate

53:27

when people use this term but it is doing soul work and there is this way in which people

53:32

are they’re embedded in the works that they produce and you’re kind of

53:38

it’s sort of it’s not sort of it’s kind of like it’s an extension of their thought their their thinking their labor

53:44

their care um there’s something that’s very intimate and something that’s really important about

53:51

the ways in which we present this work um and and i think it’s you know a huge

53:57

privilege to be able to do this work and it’s also a huge responsibility and there’s also something particularly

54:05

in this moment um i think i talked like you did touch on this and i think vince you did as well

54:11

there’s a way in which um [Music] there’s something where in some ways the

54:18

work that we do i kind of see myself as a buffer not that it’s always needed but

54:23

there are ways in which you’re not only necessarily trying to present this work so that it can be

54:30

properly engaged with so that there can be multiple readings of a work but you’re

54:36

also frequently trying to prevent harm from being done to work and

54:43

i think tackle like you were talking about this how so many institutions will have collections but they don’t

54:48

necessarily have the depth of knowledge um that is necessary to animate these works and

54:55

there are ways in which you’re trying to prevent say works from being exploited or being positioned in particular ways that don’t

55:01

really further the intents of the artist so um these are

55:07

i guess these are things that i’m i’m thinking about and i think um

55:13

they’re they’re i think just thinking about all of the things that um

55:21

the fellow panelists have said and things that i think about um [Music]

55:28

with i guess the artists who i work with the things that they’re exploring the ways that they open up how we can understand

55:36

um say indigeneity or place

55:42

or or colonization um but i i just i think um

55:52

i guess coming back to this notion of care um there’s something that’s very potent

55:58

in in this this work um that we’re doing

56:04

that all of us are doing not just curators but like artists and and other arts practitioners as well

56:12

what you said sally really reminded me of like a quote by emily changer that i really like

56:17

uh repeat often um that sort of came out in the process of us working on a collaborative text together last spring

56:24

um and she talks about how curating for her was a way of finding a way to belong

56:30

to a place to toronto and toronto is so much like the locust of her work

56:36

um and that’s how she kind of conceptualizes these sort of relational

56:42

kind of practices and like that’s really been key for me as well and yeah in that way it is very

56:47

much like personal and very much like soul work because yeah i think so much of of collective

56:53

offerings too is about kind of being able to ground yourself somehow being able to sort of like find yourself

56:59

in this like kind of flailing matrix of like screams and and hyper stimulation but also like isolation and being like

57:06

removed from people um so yeah i really think about that a lot

57:15

it’s interesting one of the chris lim who’s on here is a student he’s one of he’s one of the attendees tonight he’s a

57:21

student he was pulling together some notes and found this reference to um an idea by magdalena hartlova

57:28

who’s a researcher who suggested that you know um so you know institutions themselves are a problem right i mean

57:35

just structurally written but you’ve all said that i think they’re challenging to work with and and

57:40

to kind of um um but you know one of one of the things she suggested is that the abstraction of

57:46

care and curatorial practice has led it to the to often be kind of interwoven

57:51

with incidents that show a lack of care right and so the thing about artwork though that i’m hearing from all of you

57:58

and it’s something that i’ve recognized as a curator as well is that you know the artwork as is so tangible

58:05

that you know it kind of um doesn’t allow that sort of um abstraction

58:12

right so it’s um and i think that’s what sort of like really strong curating is

58:17

and why it’s recognizable of these projects you’re showing it’s like it’s very like there’s no abstraction right

58:23

it’s um it’s it’s it’s and it’s because the artists are also you know they’re um

58:31

they’re showing their own experiences that have that are not abstracted at all

58:36

so it’s an interesting i think i mean so when we’re talking about curatorial practice we are talking very much about

58:41

institutions or the sites of curation as well um and we know i mean just you know

58:48

institutions like art history have been very much kind of tied to colonial histories and colonial

58:54

practices um do you think kind of overtly i know

59:00

sally you’ve talked about this in terms of like working with decolonize this place and their project was very much about you know um and all of their

59:06

conversations were very much about like decolonizing practices and like through

59:12

um and through dialogue kind of talking about um you know very concrete expressions of decolonization

59:19

um vince did you think about that with collective offerings

59:25

yeah i mean so one of the things with collective offerings and what it was trying to do was that so a

59:32

lot of the artists involved in collective offerings are themselves engaged in particularly shysta um are

59:38

engaged in processes of institutional critique and reform um sort of internally not in terms of showing their

59:44

work but in terms of engaging like institutions that have displayed harmful behavior and trying to pull them into

59:50

reparative processes and and actually the the ground for the

59:55

exhibition was was often like you know or sort of frustration with that process um

1:00:01

and for me particularly um because i did i guess

1:00:06

i’ve written more than i’ve curated um and a lot of that has to do with this

1:00:12

idea of like of critically like questioning things

1:00:17

that position themselves as decolonizing a cannon so my particular area of interest is very much south asian art

1:00:23

history um and in recent years there’s been kind of like uh

1:00:29

now it’s like a case of competing cannons right because of sort of commercial interest

1:00:34

there is this strong desire to create sort of um a compendium of south asian

1:00:40

masterworks that kind of align with certain ideas of nation states certain ideas of dominant culture certain ideas that are

1:00:47

also like palatable to kind of european ideas of modernism um

1:00:52

and it really is about like sort of uh pumping up the value of collectors portfolios and

1:00:58

and finding um ways to justify to uh western

1:01:04

institutions that have run out well that can’t afford um a lot of contemporary art made in the

1:01:09

west uh to acquire them as being of historical significance

1:01:15

and in the process of that i found it it becomes quite

1:01:22

violent epistemically really because i mean to kind of give a stark example of that

1:01:28

um right before the pandemic started i was at the dhaka art summit which is in bangladesh it’s my hometown i grew up in

1:01:34

dhaka um i happened to be there with like the agyu team because they were um

1:01:40

researching their show that they did last fall with good school um

1:01:46

and you know it was this entire kind of choreographed event where all these white people could

1:01:52

come and like fulfill their weird exotic fantasies um lots of self-actualization happening it

1:01:59

was actually quite disease um and and you know

1:02:05

while they boast like hundreds of thousands of people going through as soon as all of the international art people left suddenly there were security

1:02:11

guards at every corner you know policing how you move through the space um you know uh the the opening work was this

1:02:19

thing that was making references to deep i think it was adrian villarreal house i

1:02:24

was making references to deep time to like environmentalism but you know you had to um because of security

1:02:31

restrictions you can take liquids into the building so you had like there was this giant pile of plastic water bottles

1:02:37

because also there was no like drinkable water other than you buying these like very overpriced bottles of plastic water

1:02:43

and and then there were like um people who like pick through them you know and

1:02:49

to sell those things to recycling facilities um they were picking through them and it was just like the irony was

1:02:55

somehow lost on people um so

1:03:01

a lot of my writing tends to confront those material conditions and there seems to be a lot of intransigency

1:03:07

around confronting them um in our field because i mean you know there’s all sorts of economic incentives to do so um

1:03:16

and so i find often that when i do write a critical essay what i’m met with is a lack of capacity

1:03:23

in terms of thinking like about what kinds of harms are caused because because of a lack of thinking

1:03:30

laterally also it’s always about this kind of ascendant axis of like you know like

1:03:36

they were back down here and now we’re up here like kind of thing um and so

1:03:43

collective offerings is a way of kind of being like what happens if we kind of

1:03:50

stopped engaging in this discourse of like institutions and representation and diversity things that are also like

1:03:58

you know corporate hr speak that comes from the ninth from the 80s and 90s right um and got back to

1:04:05

different ways of relating to each other what forms of knowledge can be generated and out of that what kind of criticality

1:04:13

can emerge as well right so that when you write an article saying that you

1:04:19

know yeah this is this is work about the history of a genocide but it’s also an extremely like male perspective on that

1:04:26

genocide that like erases the gendered violence that went on in it i’m referring to a specific article that i

1:04:31

wrote um that people don’t just come back and say well it’s a it’s an artist of color why do you hate artists of

1:04:36

color um you know that it that we can hold that multiplicity as well

1:04:45

attacker like just picking up on that i think he spoke to this idea of you know trying to address the harms that have

1:04:52

been created using vince’s language when you’re talking about different ways of

1:04:57

you know having inuit sort of creating exhibitions that are created by and um

1:05:04

contain the work of inuit artists and um you know for inuit audiences right sort of doing it

1:05:10

creating exhibitions on a completely different term um

1:05:17

that sort of i imagine that’s in response to the kind of the harm that has been created historically

1:05:26

first of all i just want to say that i feel like sally hit several nails on the head

1:05:33

in her earlier comments uh that that sense of responsibility

1:05:38

is very heavy at times i think that um

1:05:43

you know the indigenous art world so-called indigenous art and the inner art world

1:05:49

they’re small places where people know each other and are connected

1:05:55

both professionally and familiarly um

1:06:00

and you know by community connections all kinds of there’s all kinds of connections like we don’t

1:06:05

um we’re we are in relation with other artists other community members

1:06:12

even after we leave whatever gallery or whatever you know

1:06:17

workplace we’re involved when involved in so like our first relationship is really with these people as our

1:06:23

community members um and uh

1:06:28

now i lost my transplant sorry what was the question i guess well you were saying sally hit a couple

1:06:34

of nails on the head right but before that i i was because i’d been wanting i’ve been holding on to that one and

1:06:39

then i left well i was just sort of tying vince’s comment about the you know addressing

1:06:46

the harms that have been created and that that you know you’re sort of starting at a point of

1:06:52

you know try you know dealing with those harms but this is how you do it you know you sort of recreate

1:06:58

the exhibition i don’t know if i think about it so much in terms of of harm but

1:07:04

really in reconnecting like i would you know

1:07:09

almost like dropping people’s names but like i listened to a talk by wanda nana bush

1:07:14

recently that she did for cam cambridge um and she was talking about um you know

1:07:20

what you center is the thing that you know you put your energy into and the thing that you bring about

1:07:26

so what i want to center is you know amplifying inmate voices bringing inuit

1:07:32

together with our heritage um bringing new

1:07:37

work and new culture new forms of inner culture too light as other enemies want them to

1:07:43

be brought to light and um you know of course there is all that

1:07:49

harm there there’s this huge there’s this you know the inuit art movement in

1:07:55

canada is famous it’s like i sometimes say it’s like the mascot of canada you know it’s like if you go to any

1:08:01

foreign office or foreign embassy canadian embassy in a foreign country and you go to any bank

1:08:07

you can see inuit art on grey’s anatomy real inner art hanoi

1:08:13

art on the walls in on the set in grey’s anatomy

1:08:20

you know and a lot of that movement of inuit art uh you know all that stuff was sold away

1:08:27

and became part of collections and earns record prices

1:08:33

on auction in all kinds of places away from inuit homelands

1:08:39

and their family members still exist and don’t have any of those things and you know it’s great that the family

1:08:45

members can make the money back then and provide for their families and build cooperatives and all that um

1:08:53

you know it’s not that they didn’t want to sell those things but the fact remains that a lot of our culture has bled out and

1:09:02

um how can we access those things so i try to do that in small ways one personal project

1:09:08

that i have is finding smaller works by historical works by

1:09:13

certain family members and trying to reconnect them with family members and communities that i know so for example

1:09:19

in nuremberg i know all you know i know the family names by community

1:09:24

and if i find work by their family members then i try to

1:09:30

either [Music] you know see if they want to buy it or you know if it’s not too expensive see

1:09:35

if i can buy it i had actually uh a dealer here in ottawa when i told him about that he recently gave me

1:09:42

uh three sculptures to give back to family members in um in three different communities in

1:09:49

nineveh so i i was really touched by that i would like to see more of that

1:09:54

you know i try to encourage you know people who have historical collections like you’re buying stuff now

1:10:01

you know that’s being sold now that’s made today not so much but the historical stuff

1:10:06

where people you know are really trying to reconnect um i think you know

1:10:11

those things that sell for record prices on auction are actually way more valuable than that that price

1:10:18

they’re they’re priceless to us as inuit so you know

1:10:23

i have the privilege of having access to some of this art world stuff

1:10:29

and i never i i don’t feel like i’m moving through it as like somebody who oh my ambition is to be

1:10:37

you know the best and the greatest and to make this huge career it’s really about okay once i get this opportunity

1:10:43

how can i uh translate it into a benefit for my community and i feel like that goes a little bit

1:10:49

to what uh sally was saying about that that kind of weight of responsibility like

1:10:56

you have this very particular knowledge that you bring to that relationship that you have with sandra bruce or brewster

1:11:02

that you’ve built with her um and it it’s like invaluable that that

1:11:08

particular self that you bring to that relationship but it doesn’t translate into

1:11:14

having the most spectacular rich career it’s like there’s so there’s so much

1:11:21

so many little things in that in those kind of relationships that you have to do in little bumps along the road that

1:11:27

you have to address and you know being that buffer and being and doing all those

1:11:33

little tiny battles that you have to do that don’t seem like anything to somebody who’s not in your position

1:11:40

those are the things that you know are kind of

1:11:45

the most important thing that is going on behind the scenes in this kind of work

1:11:54

well thank you all um do we have any questions from anyone in the audience

1:12:04

do you have any questions for each other

1:12:12

i just want to say thank you to both of you i’m so thrilled that i was on with the two of you and thank you so

1:12:18

much shauna for bringing us together thank you for joining us

1:12:26

um you kind of have a question yeah go ahead

1:12:32

um at the last minute um yeah i keep thinking about this idea of responsibility um both in terms of

1:12:40

curating in a work and also in terms of um you know sandra booster show that you

1:12:46

were talking about sally how do you um

1:12:53

how do you kind of negotiate this the idea of like the colonizer’s gaze on these objects because that’s something

1:12:59

that i always find myself kind of like trying to work with in the sense that um

1:13:05

for example in our show shireen’s work is very like specific to

1:13:11

um you know islamic occult sciences um and we were sort of constantly

1:13:18

apprehensive of like are we kind of adding these like kind of exotifying orientalizing markers to it

1:13:24

um so i wonder how you negotiate that

1:13:30

i think um

1:13:37

i think there are some things where i’m just uh it was interesting because i had uh i

1:13:44

had this conversation with one of the mfa students that well we had a studio visit we were kind of

1:13:50

talking about this how there are these really weighty histories that are embedded in certain works

1:13:56

and um at a certain point it’s just it is what

1:14:02

it is so i think one of the things that’s interesting um that you know i kind of think about

1:14:08

and decolonize this place has sort of brought this up um because you know there were

1:14:15

in dialogue with them the issue of abolishing institutions has arisen

1:14:20

um and it’s interesting too because a lot of a lot of the members of that collective they work in institutions

1:14:27

right they because the academic institution that’s an institution as well

1:14:32

um so i think there are ways so i’m kind of talking around it and then i’ll answer you directly like there

1:14:38

are a couple of things like i think about this for example like the three of us are having

1:14:43

this conversation through guelph and we’re speaking in english right and that’s a mark of colonization and

1:14:49

we all respectively like culturally we the fact that we are speaking english

1:14:56

that’s a mark of it’s a violence right essentially but then at the same time it’s allowing us

1:15:02

we are where we’re at and it’s allowing us to connect with each other and there and i

1:15:08

think it’s really interesting because with sandra in particular when we talk

1:15:14

when we talk about her work um and this is something that comes up again and again

1:15:20

um sandra sandra’s work sandra in particular and i think this also comes up with um

1:15:27

you know with so many artists but like we’re looking at sandra’s work and maria hubfield’s work was up there it was

1:15:32

native art department but also maria hubfield in particular there’s this this kind of deep um love

1:15:40

and uh sort of commitment for the communities that they are connected to so as much as you know any artist

1:15:48

you you would make the work and you’d you’d have shows in your living room for your family and friends if you weren’t looking to commute to communicate to

1:15:55

larger audiences so that’s one thing and then there are multiple ways

1:16:01

um there are multiple audiences who can engage in your work you never know who’s going to see your work so for example

1:16:07

there’s um someone who works at guelph um a contract employee who’s from columbia

1:16:13

and we showed a carolina quesado work and this person was delighted to encounter that work because they heard spanish and

1:16:19

they knew it was the accent of one of the speakers and the pieces they knew the person was colombian right so there

1:16:25

are ways in which you can and again spanish it’s a it’s another like linguistic marker of colonization

1:16:32

but it was still it was also speaking to this very particular identity so i think like to go back to like to use sandra’s

1:16:38

work as an example when sandra is making work a lot of the time she’s not solely speaking to but she’s very much in

1:16:44

dialogue with with um caribbean audiences and um

1:16:50

and say like african diasporic audiences and

1:16:56

not just solely those those communities but those are people those are audiences or

1:17:02

communities that she’s very cognizant of when she’s she’s making work and there are times when she’ll produce work and

1:17:09

people who are from particular communities will walk into the space and they’ll be able to identify it and other

1:17:14

people will need to read the didactics so this is something she’s very cognizant of and i think there are ways

1:17:21

there are ways like it’s kind of interesting too like i think it’s an interesting kind of

1:17:27

um like thinking about eduard lisan and how he writes about opacity

1:17:33

and and um this way in which you know like in the west you know you know obviously he’s kind of speaking

1:17:39

to caribbean communities but like we don’t need to make everything transparent for wider audiences and i i

1:17:46

was thinking about this in terms of i took this course years ago um it was this art theory course and the

1:17:53

instructor when what what year was this and it was like in 2008 or something 2005

1:18:00

and this was um there were lots of i don’t this is terrible i cannot remember when um gay marriage was

1:18:08

legalized in canada but i remember the conversations at the time where it was like what does it mean to be um kind of

1:18:15

validated uh by the mainstream and what is this doing to this kind of

1:18:21

um like there are ways in which like i’m just even thinking about particular

1:18:27

codes in terms of how people dressed and like it was a matter of survival but it was a way of like

1:18:34

kind of maintaining this particular culture and what does that mean when it’s kind of dispersed to a broader

1:18:40

audience so i don’t think i answered your question at all i don’t think i answered your question

1:18:45

at all it was more like a stream of consciousness response to what you were saying

1:18:51

i really don’t think there is an answer honestly i think it’s like hoping for like strategies yeah because

1:18:56

we also yeah the opacity thing is really really like like i i i think i’m still trying to

1:19:02

understand gleason’s work in so many ways um but you know just kind of building these little walls around the work to kind of

1:19:08

protect it and not sort of explain little bits of it um that’s what we were trying to do hopefully we were

1:19:14

successful with shootings work for example where we didn’t want to explain gmsc we were just like here’s the thing

1:19:20

um and there are yet kernels that you can connect to that are very visceral and kind of emotional but

1:19:26

yeah i wonder how that encounter translated for different people i’m sorry like tech like you haven’t

1:19:32

responded i don’t know if you wanted to say something because i was going to say something else too but oh go ahead continue with your

1:19:39

thought i forgot the question already i think like in terms of

1:19:45

like there are always multiple ways of reading a work and there are multiple um

1:19:50

kind of portals of engagement with the work and uh

1:19:56

and i think there are i think there are strategies in terms of you know how things are

1:20:07

like within the context of how a work is installed in this space you know

1:20:13

the interpretive text the way in which um like the kind of intro panel the wall

1:20:20

labels the if there’s an accompanying essay like these are all things that can talk about positioning a work or if a

1:20:27

work that kind of largely refuses um

1:20:32

entry into it you know if you talk about that refusal and what that means

1:20:38

you know what it means to encounter something like that that can open up

1:20:44

um you know how you’re considering art and not just this particular piece

1:20:51

um there’s a there is um an artist

1:20:57

i think i can’t remember her name this is the evening well all my evenings are like

1:21:02

this where i can’t remember artists names um but there was this artist who um i remember when i was in grad school

1:21:09

my class we went to i think it was i can’t remember what museum we went

1:21:16

to but it it was this um space in the netherlands and it was they

1:21:22

had this huge campus and there was this piece that we gathered to speak about and one of my

1:21:28

classmates had to do a presentation on it and this artist um they’ve since passed their iranian but

1:21:35

they did this series of paintings and they were buried in the ground so he kind of gathered at the site where they

1:21:41

were there and i remember just coming back and thinking thinking about what that

1:21:47

gesture meant and just kind of imagining what the paintings look like and and imagining what the artist

1:21:54

you know what their desire was in that and how they imagined that

1:21:59

future audiences would be you know what their response to that

1:22:04

would be so i think um i think they’re all they’re all there are multiple ways in

1:22:10

which you can and cannot resist the colonial gaze

1:22:20

there was one question i know we’ve gone over but i feel like since someone’s gonna ask the question we should address

1:22:26

it so ellie uh writes i found it was interesting that you showed images of the ex of the exhibitions each curator

1:22:32

has worked on how would you visually or conceptually represent the labor you put into your practice including

1:22:38

relationship building aka the behind the scenes work

1:22:47

okay i’m gonna make a response um i don’t know how you would represent

1:22:53

this but i think one of the things that’s really interesting about the arts is how much invisible labor there is and

1:22:59

there’s a way in which um [Music] the visual arts in particular are romanticized

1:23:06

and um [Music] and even like i was having this discussion i’ve been having this discussion with multiple people over the

1:23:13

past several months um just the idea you know when we we think about

1:23:20

um [Music] it’s not really a cliche but this this you know trope of the starving artist

1:23:26

and how you kind of have to pay your dues and i’d like and i think it’s interesting because of outside of say

1:23:32

um working working in being a writer

1:23:38

being a musician being a performer being a visual artist

1:23:44

there usually aren’t other jobs that exist where we would say it was acceptable that you have to do three

1:23:50

other jobs so that you can perform this one thing like we wouldn’t say oh that’s okay this

1:23:56

lawyer has to have three other jobs so that they can practice law or this surgeon has to have three other jobs so

1:24:02

that they can no you can do your surgery at night right and of course there are ways in which we don’t

1:24:08

but you know why aren’t we equating these things in the same way and i think

1:24:13

one of the things it’s interesting because i’m sure you would push back from different people

1:24:20

depending on what role they occupy in the in the field of art but um

1:24:26

there’s a way in which the labor that curators perform is rendered invisible and it kind of should be

1:24:33

um it kind of um should be because it’s about you know

1:24:39

the labor that we perform is predicated on the labor of artists producing work right you know we read about it we

1:24:46

you know we place it we um or sorry we speak about it we write about it etc but

1:24:51

i think there are ways and one of um talk like you you spoke about this and

1:24:56

this is something that i’ve started doing with some of the artists who i know more intimately or i’ve had more

1:25:02

extensive relationships with where i’ve started blatantly saying like everything that i negotiate

1:25:08

for you on behalf of the institution i’m the one who pays the price for that so if i’m in a place

1:25:14

that doesn’t you know say if i’m working outside of canada in a space that doesn’t normally pay artist fees the resentment

1:25:21

of the institution having to pay the artist is directed towards me as the organizer it’s not

1:25:27

visited upon that artist not that it should be but it’s sort of like they don’t think about these things or the

1:25:32

the work that you’re doing is like a racialized person in this space and how you’re operating in this space of

1:25:38

precarity already and um and i think i don’t know how you would

1:25:44

make i mean discussing these things that’s a way of making it visible or if um

1:25:51

even you know this sort of writing a text the amount of energy that goes into that and

1:25:57

um and even producing a text the amount of like researching and then

1:26:03

the kind of like um [Music] thinking like the time that you need to

1:26:08

a lot to thinking and kind of um uh absorbing that material and kind of

1:26:14

reconstituting it in different ways um i think that’s a lot of labor that people aren’t necessarily

1:26:20

um aware of and that’s before again like you get to all of the admin

1:26:26

and kind of back and forth in emails and things like that um [Music]

1:26:31

and i think you know there are ways in which artist labor is rendered invisible

1:26:36

as well because they often they they put

1:26:42

you know the same amount of labor into the work that they do like we’re sort of seeing

1:26:50

you know an end result but it doesn’t it doesn’t necessarily embody all of the work that goes

1:26:57

that goes into their practice and maintaining it

1:27:04

that reminds me of a show that denise weiner did it or gallery where uh the two artists just like painted the walls

1:27:10

light like constantly um and then you have the sounds of it playing to kind of try to render some of that invisible

1:27:16

labor visible but then yeah you’re so right in the sense that you know going back to that earlier point of like

1:27:22

responsibility and these the intimacy of these personal relationships sometimes also to

1:27:28

guarantee the conditions of safety for creating the work i feel like you need to keep these relationships private if

1:27:34

you publicize it too much then fishers begin to sort of i think emerge um and also if it becomes a replicable

1:27:41

methodology then it also becomes something that then people like co-opt and kind of use as a way of like

1:27:48

crossing people’s boundaries more or less yeah because i think also another side of this kind of work is that

1:27:53

sometimes you have curators are way too um sort of overbearing or

1:27:58

personal unprofessional too much yeah and and i think um

1:28:04

[Music] again that kind of goes back to this sort of

1:28:10

like kind of the currency of that notion of opacity where you don’t need to explain everything but that is that is

1:28:17

another you know everyone doesn’t approach the work that they’re doing in the same way

1:28:24

and i think one of the things is that um

1:28:30

i think uh again this idea of like the invisible

1:28:35

curator and the knowledgeable voice of the institution

1:28:40

um i think you know kind of maybe talking a bit more about the fact that you know

1:28:47

none of these positions are neutral um and they’re all informed by

1:28:53

where we stand in relation to things and i think what’s interesting is

1:28:59

about um i guess the work that the three of us are doing but not just the three of us other people who are from similar

1:29:06

backgrounds is like there’s no you’re not really it’s not that we’re claiming it or we’re

1:29:13

expressing a desire for it but because of the fact that we’re race racialized

1:29:18

subjects we’re not we’re implicated we’re seen as being implicated in the work whereas everyone

1:29:24

is implicated in the work that they do and everyone’s culture and experience and their

1:29:30

racial identity plays into their work it’s just some people are you know

1:29:36

kind of granted they’re bestowed with this kind of um [Music]

1:29:43

i guess it’s sort of like a false construct of neutrality

1:29:48

um and others we we’re never granted that

1:29:53

so but i think again but again it’s kind of like you know i can’t really say

1:30:00

that i’m desiring that because the reasons why some of these works uh resonate with me

1:30:06

like there there are also there are people who i’ve worked with and works that um i find compelling and practices

1:30:13

i find compelling that are outside of my own experience but there’s always something that um

1:30:20

there’s something personal that whether it’s like you know just i’m interested in this like i’m interested in abject

1:30:26

things right and um but

1:30:32

but i think you know that kind of these

1:30:38

have basically having skin in the game like literally and figuratively that kind of strengthens the work that you’re

1:30:45

doing in many ways that’s not the be all in end of it but it’s i think i think it’s

1:30:50

a strength

1:30:57

any thoughts

1:31:05

we have lots of thank yous from people too so thank you all

1:31:13

thank you thank you this was this is so lovely

1:31:20

so it’s so good to actually have you welcome in conversation so um we should be able to do this in

1:31:25

person it’s food it’s almost almost here so anyway thank

1:31:31

you all um uh for your thoughts i think they were really really critical um

1:31:36

at this moment and and beyond this moment so thank you for sharing and um oh hello erin um

1:31:44

uh take care and uh we will all talk soon and this uh this will be was recorded and will be on available on our

1:31:51

website under our art talk section if you want to visit later um

1:31:56

and uh have a good evening everyone good night take care

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