Reconciliation 2018
Reconciliation 2018 – Curatorial Statement
In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2012 findings and the Call to Action published in 2015 the Multicultural Heritage Centre Public Art Gallery (MCPAG) is committed to engaging local, regional and national Indigenous, Metis and Inuit peoples in our annual programing.
We Invite you to consider the role of cultural production in decolonization, and to rethink Indigenous and colonial art as creative action nurtured by community and closely connected to the decolonization of self, society, and land. This exhibit explores and challenges colonial conceptions of art and power, and ‘ground’ de-colonial aesthetics to creative praxis in both the physical and imaginative spaces.
As always, MCPAG is interested in projects that connect theoretical discussions with active decolonization work by engaging the intersections of theory, art and practice. We encourage projects which draw from personal, experiential, and subjective locations, as well as work that focus on contemporary forms of creative expression including, but not limited to: visual art, performance, literature, new media/internet art, music, film, and design.
In 2018 we encouraged contributors to consider the following questions:
– What are the connections and relationships between art, activism, resurgence, and resistance?
– What is the role of cultural production in decolonization? How might art contribute to the revitalization of Indigenous nationhood?
– How can art be used to disrupt normative orders and political status quo?
– How is Indigenous artistic creation connected to history, land, and community?
– How might art and aesthetics, born out of particular locations, Indigenous communities and nations, enable practices of solidarity and alliance to be forged in creative ways?
– What are the intersections between gender and de-colonial or Indigenous art and aesthetics?
– How does art create, speak to, and emerge from alternative spaces that contest global capitalism, colonial violence, and imperial expansion?
– How is art used to challenge, unmake, or reconstruct borders?
– How can artistic production contribute to Indigenous futures?
– In what ways does art occupy or create contested spaces of ambivalence, between aesthetic production and politically contentious creativity?
Jane Ash Poitras
Mike Alexander
Nico Williams
Shawn Adams