![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/mrp\/artsyfn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/04\/IMG_9102-1-300x225.jpg\")
Jasmine Inglis stands in front of portraits by Iroquois artist Jeff Thomas. [Photo \u00a9 Jennifer Liu]<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n As a curatorial assistant of Indigenous visual art, Jasmine Inglis has input into what works are displayed for the general public to see.<\/p>\n \u201cIndigenous people don\u2019t want to be pigeon-holed into only doing historical things in a contemporary time,\u201d Inglis says. \u201cIndigenous artists are like any other contemporary artist: they want to be recognized for their work as an individual, not just because they\u2019re Indigenous.\u201d<\/p>\n At the National Gallery of Canada \u2013 where Inglis works \u2013 she helped select the series of four portraits by photo-based Indigenous storyteller Jeff Thomas. They are the face of the National Gallery\u2019s most recent installation, featuring winners of the 2019 Governor General Awards in Visual and Media Arts.<\/p>\n Inglis says that an ongoing issue in Indigenous arts circles is that non-Indigenous visitors seek art that they perceive as being authentically Indigenous. Northwest coast art \u2013 totem poles and ovoids come to mind \u2013 are linked with non-White art. Inglis says stereotypes still need to be broken down between audience impressions of Indigenous art, and current realities.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is still an older generation that has a problem seeing contemporary work by Indigenous artists and accepting it as they want to see something else,\u201d Inglis says. \u201cThat is no longer a reality, that\u2019s in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n That said, audiences have grown more open-minded of Indigenous art\u2019s coverage progressively since the ’60s. At the National Gallery, Inuit art started being collected in 1956 and contemporary Indigenous art in 1986. The Gallery’s mandate corresponds with Call to Action No. 79 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report: that of the integration of \u201cIndigenous history, heritage values, and memory practices into Canada\u2019s national heritage and history.\u201d<\/p>\n Inglis says the National Gallery\u2019s mandate is \u201ccertainly not\u201d to portray Indigenous art in an exotic light, or even as being labelled as \u201cIndigenous\u201d separate from the Gallery\u2019s other collections. Instead, the intention is to showcase Indigenous art in the context of a general contemporary practice and movement. \u201cI definitely think of it as: our goal as curators is to highlight work for the work itself, not for the indigeneity of it,\u201d Inglis says. She stops short of calling it a battle to bring understanding to a piece: for one, the 60-character limits on labels make it difficult to convey conceptual ideas.<\/p>\n Each piece of art demands a different relationship between its creator and the viewer. Different artists reveal different amounts of cues to bring the viewer into their cultural world: Inglis says some are didactic and like to explain concepts, while others want the viewer to see the work as it appears. Some people have more knowledge of the subject, others may interpret abstract concepts from a work: \u201cIt really depends on the viewer and on what the artist is willing to offer,\u201d Inglis says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a great time for the museum world and for historically marginalized artists,\u201d Inglis says. \u201cEspecially in the art world, there\u2019s lots of moves forward to be more inclusive and to change historical modes of display that have been ruling for 40, 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_blurb][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/mrp\/artsyfn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/04\/IMG_9051-2.jpg” _builder_version=”3.21″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.21″ text_font=”||||||||” text_text_color=”#179e75″ custom_margin=”-22px||46px”]<\/p>\n Jaime Morse, seated at the far left, participates in the the Social Responsibility in the Heritage Sector symposium in Ottawa on March 30, 2019. [Photo \u00a9 Jennifer Liu]<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.21″]<\/p>\n But Jaime Morse (n\u00e9e Koebel), an Indigenous staff member at the National Gallery, is underwhelmed by the Gallery\u2019s efforts to uphold Indigenous culture.<\/p>\n Morse is an Otipemsiwak\/Nehiyaw (M\u00e9tis\/Cree) woman who moved to Ottawa from Lac La Biche, Alberta in 2000 as a 15-year-old. She an educator in the National Gallery of Canada\u2019s Indigenous Programs and Outreach department. She is also the founder of Indigenous Walks, an Ottawa walking tour that takes participants to monuments that are significant to Indigenous history.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, she is contemplating leaving her position in protest. She says 98.5 per cent of the staff are non-Indigenous at the institution, and says the Gallery should put in resources to hire somebody to promote positive relations between Indigenous groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m here to educate the public, but my job has turned into educating everyone else around me who is not Indigenous,\u201d Morse says.<\/p>\n Morse acknowledges that in Ottawa, she has seen a difference in Indigenous inclusion, citing Indigenous displays at the Canada Space and Technology Museum and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. \u201cBut it\u2019s like, this big compared to their whole space,\u201d Morse gestures at the width of her body. \u201cBut I still feel that as an Indigenous person in our society, they should be given more space. The changes are really small, and that\u2019s just on the surface \u2013 somebody might go into a gallery and be like, \u2018Wow, they did this! Good for you, museum, this was never here before!\u2019 \u201d Morse says.<\/p>\n She has come to question the museological perspective in this time of renewed interest in art\u2019s role in reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.21″]<\/p>\n Morse recalls a quote from the 2018 CBC Massey Lectures by Sen. Murray Sinclair, Chief Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. \u201cHe said, \u2018If we\u2019re waiting for institutions or these governments\u2026to stop doing what they\u2019re doing for us to heal, basically it will never happen,\u2019 \u201d Morse says. That shook her sense of security around benefits, a nine-to-five job and regular pay. \u201cThe reason we\u2019re still here as Indigenous Peoples is because our people have done what they\u2019ve always done for thousands of years. I don\u2019t want to lose that knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n As for guiding people from a dominant culture to shed their inherent expectations of other cultures\u2019 art, she has stopped trying to figure that question out. \u201cBecause I want to figure out how I can pick up art and traditional knowledge, and I don\u2019t care what the dominant culture is anymore.”<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.21″ header_font=”||||||||” header_text_color=”#179e75″]<\/p>\n Stacy Douglas joined the Carleton University Department of Law and Legal Studies in 2012. (Photo courtesy of Carleton University)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In her recent book, Curating Community: Museums, Constitutionalism, and the Taming of the Political,<\/em>\u00a0Carleton University associate professor Stacy Douglas argues that so long as museological institutions exist, old-fashioned ideals of art will persist, which sets up a hierarchical complex.<\/p>\n For Douglas, who teaches in the department of law and legal studies, her view hinges on three tenets: that museological representations are limited in scale; that an underlying European aesthetic lends a performative quality to exhibits, and that the goal-oriented impetus to Western lifestyles hinders any anti-colonial movements.<\/p>\n To explain how Indigenous rights may be ascertained, Douglas cites Janet Marstine, a specialist in museum ethics: museums must be converted \u201cfrom a site of worship and awe to one of discourse and critical reflection that is committed to examining unsettling histories with sensitivity to all parties\u2026New museum theory is about decolonizing, giving those represented control of their own cultural heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n Ming Tiampo is an art history professor and director of the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture at Carleton University. She takes particular interest in museum curation and disrupting old standards of appraising art.<\/p>\n \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be about those labelled communities \u2013 it should be much more about decolonizing our structures,\u201d Tiampo says. Further, she argues that the conventional model hinders the fusional process of reconciliation. \u201cIt\u2019s creating divisions between communities and asking people to identify solely with a particular identity group that has been identified as being a priority, or not a priority,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_code _builder_version=”3.21″] “Indigenous\u2026art history cannot avoid the realm of the anthropologist \u2013 the museum. Many art works from the history period are in museum collections with little or no provenance, organized by object type or regional categories. These persistent generic identifications, combined with a generic lack of specific information, effectively erase the human maker.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_code _builder_version=”3.21″] “I\u2019ve been at the Gallery since 2013 and I\u2019m questioning my impact at the Gallery and whether that\u2019s where I want to put my energy. So in one hand, I think that\u2019s great but at a deep level they\u2019re not going to change and I feel like I\u2019m wasting my time. That\u2019s how I feel on my low days, and I just want to go back to my community and learn all I can learn from my dad who lives off the land and fishes, and teach my kids and my people, and that\u2019s where I think real reconciliation can happen. But I\u2019m losing that faith that that can happen, within an institution it\u2019s not inherently possible.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_divider _builder_version=”3.21″][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/mrp\/artsyfn\/pow-wow-as-an-enhanced-indigenous-performance\/” button_text=”Previous: Pow-wow as an enhanced Indigenous performance” button_alignment=”left” _builder_version=”3.21″][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/mrp\/artsyfn\/kevin-barr-boyd-benjamin\/” button_text=”Next: A dynamic First Nations duo” button_alignment=”right” _builder_version=”3.21″][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a curatorial assistant of Indigenous visual art, Jasmine Inglis has input into what works are displayed for the general public to see. \u201cIndigenous people don\u2019t want to be pigeon-holed into only doing historical things in a contemporary time,\u201d Inglis says. \u201cIndigenous artists are like any other contemporary artist: they want to be recognized for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-54","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/mrp\/artsyfn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/04\/Douglas-Stacy-150x150.jpg\")
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