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

This talk was part of the 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 speaker was Linda Grussani, who is a doctoral candidate in the Cultural Studies program at Queen’s University. Linda’s talk was followed by a Q&A with the audience, moderated by our student organizers, Emily Barton and Elisa Arca Jarque.

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.

Artists, archivists ,and researchers engage with analog and legacy digital materials, many of which are at-risk. Explore different ways of assessing these media at Archival Atelier, ACA’s new series of workshops devoted to varied media types and their preservation.

Archive/Counter-Archive is delighted to announce the publication of "Moments of Perception: Experimental Film in Canada," a book featuring a major essay on the history of the movement by Michael Zryd and profiles of key filmmakers by Stephen Broomer and editors Jim Shedden and Barbara Sternberg,

Publication of this book has been supported by Archive/Counter-Archive (A/CA): Activating Canada's Moving Image Heritage, which is funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Partnership Grant

This talk was part 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 second speaker of this term was Kate J. Russell, who is a PhD Candidate in Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto. Kate's talk was followed by a Q&A with the audience, moderated by our student organizers, Emily Barton and Elisa Arca Jarque.