Archive/Counter-Archive Working Papers Series Presents Linda Grussani | Recognition and Access: Indigenous Curatorial Practice
Online and free
Tue, February 15, 2022
4:30 PM – 6:00 PM EST
Join us for another online iteration of the Archive/Counter-Archive Working Papers Series, which brings together PhD students from different Universities to hear about exciting doctoral research in the area of archival studies. Our next speaker is Linda Grussani, who is a doctoral candidate in the Cultural Studies program at Queen’s University. Linda’s talk will be followed by a Q&A with the audience, moderated by our student organizers, Emily Barton and Elisa Arca Jarque.
NOTE: The Zoom link will be emailed to all who register on February 14th.
Recognition and Access: Indigenous Curatorial Practice
Over the last four decades, the exhibition and display of Indigenous cultural production have increasingly become a priority for museums in Canada and internationally. This transition has primarily been encouraged by the criticism of past hegemonic institutional practices that have excluded, marginalized, or ignored the contributions of Indigenous Peoples. Post-modernism and the international discourse on human rights have influenced these changes, which also follow a global trend for museums to critically examine the ideologies underpinning their museological approaches and assumptions about Indigenous Peoples and communities, marking one of the most significant shifts in museum practices since museums opened to the public in the 19th century. Concurrently, recognizing the actions of non-state actors involved in cultural and public diplomacy has been on the rise. In Canada, Indigenous leaders, and more specifically, arts and culture practitioners, share a long legacy of engaging in art and politics to influence change, exert sovereignty and advance policies. Only recently encouraged into these spaces, Indigenous curators navigate a complex landscape of settler-Indigenous relationships impacted by connections to community, land and the roles and responsibilities that come with their Indigenous and professional positionality. This presentation will discuss recommendations, policies, and methodologies that have influenced institutional access to the traces of our Indigenous histories in museums collections and galleries.
Linda Grussani (Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg/Italian ancestry) is a curator and art historian born and raised on unceded Anishinàbeg Akì in the Ottawa area. Grussani has spent over two decades working to change the colonial structure from within by advancing the presence and representation of Indigenous ancestral and cultural belongings in settler-colonial cultural structures of the Canadian-nation state imposed on Anishinàbe Akì. Grussani has held the positions of Curator, Aboriginal Art at the Canadian Museum of History (CMH) and Director, Indigenous Art Centre for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC). She has also worked in the Indigenous art department at the National Gallery of Canada. Grussani currently sits on the Inuit Art Foundation’s Board of Directors, the Indigenous Education Council for OCAD University, and the Indigenous Collections Symposium Working Group for the Ontario Museums Association. Grussani is currently a doctoral candidate in the Cultural Studies program at Queen’s University, Chair of the Indigenous Archives Gathering Steering Committee for Archive/Counter-Archive, and a member of the North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative.
Please note this talk will have closed captioning.
REGISTRATION INFORMATION: Please click here to register! (FREE). The event will take place on ZOOM. Zoom link will be emailed to all who register on February 14th.