Symposium and Live Webcast: Friday, November 15, 2013, 9am–5pm
Location: Royal Bank Cinema, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, UBC, 6265 Crescent Road, Vancouver, BC
Seating for the symposium is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis, please arrive early; registration is not required.
Watch the Live Webcast and participate in Q&A here.
Organized in conjunction with the exhibition Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools.
The symposium will convene around questions arising from Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools, including curatorial issues, the role of artistic practice in reconciliation (along with a fundamental investigation of the concept of reconciliation), and a broader theoretical discussion around modernity and indigeneity. The project of modernization in Canada, as elsewhere, attempted to segregate, assimilate, and erase Indigenous culture, leading to policies such as the Indian Residential School system. In this process, the artistic practices of Indigenous peoples has been both marginalized and, at the same time, an important tool for cultural vitality and survivance. In what ways have artworks taking up these often-neglected aspects of modernity come to shape current practice in art and art history? What kind(s) of curatorial imperatives can, or ought to, contribute to the project of art and reconciliation?
Conceived and curated by Shelly Rosenblum.
9am: Coffee
9:30am: Introductory remarks
Larry Grant, Adjunct Professor, First Nations Language Program and Resident Elder, First Nations House of Learning, UBC
Shelly Rosenblum, Curator of Academic Programs, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, UBC
10–11:45am: “Curating Difficult Histories”
Moderator: Larissa Lai, Assistant Professor, Department of English, UBC
Richard Hill, Associate Professor, Department of Visual Art & Art History, York University
“What Big Teeth You Have Grandfather: Trauma and Rage in Woodland School Art”
Ryan Rice, Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
“Bury The Ruler: Traumatic Histories, Artistic Practice and Working from the Margins”
Lucia Sanroman, independent curator, Mexico City
“Citizen Culture”
11:45am-1:30pm: Break: lunch, gallery visit
1:30–3:15pm: “Art and Reconciliation?”
Moderator: David Gaertner, Post-Doctoral Fellow, First Nations Studies Program, UBC
David Garneau, Associate Professor, Department of Visual Arts, University of Regina
“The Display and Consumption of Indigenous Pain: Empathy and Settlement”
Steve Loft, Trudeau National Visiting Fellow, Ryerson University
“Reconciliation…REALLY?”
Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Professor, Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, and Faculty Associate, Department of Anthropology, UBC
“Being There, or Not: Indigenous Performance Art”
3:30–4:45 pm: “Modernity and Indigeneity”
Moderator: Dory Nason, Assistant Professor, First Nations Studies Program and Department of English, UBC
Shari Huhndorf, Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley
“Vision, Truth, Memory: Art of the Residential School Experience”
Dana Claxton, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, UBC
“The Sublime is Always: Re/wilding the Primitive”
4:45–5:00pm: Closing remarks
Tarah Hogue, Co-Curator, Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, UBC
Traumatic Histories, Artistic Practice and Working from the Margins is made possible with assistance from the UBC Curatorial Lecture Series, supported by the Faculty of Arts and the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory.
For more information on the symposium, visit www.belkin.ubc.ca/events/witnesses-traumatic-histories-artistic-practice-and-working-from-the-margins
For more information or to be added to the mailing list to receive updates about the symposium, please email [email protected].
