Curating Change

Curating Change: Centring Decolonization, Equity, and Social Justice in Exhibition Practice forges new methodologies in research-creation and curatorial practice. Our projects interrogate the capacity of intercultural curatorial and artistic collaboration to develop accomplices and co-conspirators among settler, Indigenous, Black and People of Colour communities.

Curating Change is led by Dr. Carla Taunton, Dr. Michelle McGeough and Dr. Heather Igloliorte.

Approach

We activate decolonizing actions, sites of co-resistances, and solidarities in public spaces and cultural institutions. We seek to understand and enhance the impact of activist and radical exhibition design, curatorial methodologies, and research-creation in the process of shifting public perceptions grounded in settler-colonial logics of apathy, benevolence, and possession. Our projects build upon the advocacy and activisms of Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour (IBPOC) cultural workers and scholars in Canada to chronicle the trailblazers and contemporaries who have established and furthered radical and activist curatorial projects. Our projects respond to the ongoing dedication of IBPOC cultural workers and other social justice proponents to mobilize resistance against white supremacy and colonial amnesia in arts-based institutions -- work that is bringing forth settler institutional reckonings.

Our hope is to address urgent gaps in scholarly research on historical and current curatorial practice through three key questions:

  1. How does curatorial activism in public spaces mobilize Indigenous sovereignties and build inter-cultural, anti-racist community connections and ignite responsibility, reciprocity, and action?

  2. What are equity-based, decolonizing, and unsettling curatorial methodologies and how can they be deployed to support a decolonized and inclusive future?

  3. How can curators engage the public while being accountable to local Indigenous protocols and community needs, through art and research-creation, to bring about social awareness and systemic change?

Project Leads:

Dr. Michelle McGeough

Dr. Michelle McGeough (Cree Métis/Settler) completed her PhD in Indigenous art history at the University of New Mexico. Prior to returning to school for her advanced degree, she taught Museum Studies at the Institute of American Indian Art and was the Assistant curator at the Wheelwright Museum of the Native American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Dr. McGeough has a Master’s degree from Carleton University as well as a BFA from Emily Carr and an undergraduate degree from the Institute of American Indian Art. She also has a B.Ed. degree from the University of Alberta. Dr. McGeough currently teaches at Concordia University in the Art History department.

Dr. McGeough’s research interests have focused on the indigenous two-spirit identity. She is a board member of daphne, the first Indigenous artist run centre in Tiohtià:ke and the IF collective. Dr. McGeough is a co-applicant in the SSCHR Thinking Through the Museum Partnership grant, Queer Operatives,  and The Morrisseau Project, and Curating Change.  Her essays have appeared in C-space, Union Docs, and an upcoming volume entitled Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer, and LGBTTQ* Interventions into Museums, Archives, and Curation. 

Dr. Heather Igloliorte

Dr. Heather Igloliorte, an Inuk-Newfoundlander and Nunatsiavut beneficiary, is the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices at the University of Victoria, BC, where she is a Professor in the Visual Arts Department (2023-). Since 2018 Heather has directed the nation-wide Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership: The Pilimmaksarniq / Pijariuqsarniq Project (2018-2026), a SSHRC-funded partnership grant which supports Inuit postsecondary students to explore professional career paths in all aspects of the arts, including collections management, curatorial practice, arts administration and other areas of the visual and performing arts, in order to address the longstanding absence of Inuit in agential positions within Canadian art history and museum practice.

Igloliorte formerly held a Tier 1 University Research Chair in Circumpolar Indigenous Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, QC, where she was the co-founding director of the Indigenous Futures Research Centre with Prof. Jason Edward Lewis. She has been an independent curator since 2005, and has created or co-created more than thirty curatorial projects throughout her career. In recognition of her contributions to curatorial practice in Canada, in 2021 Igloliorte was awarded The Hnatyshyn Foundation's Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art. In addition to her curatorial practice, Igloliorte teaches curatorial studies, critical museology, global Indigenous art history and research-creation at the University of Victoria.

Dr. Carla Taunton

Dr. Carla Taunton, a white-settler scholar, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Art History and Contemporary Culture at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (NSCAD). Her research contributes to arts-based critiques of settler colonialism and engages with theories of decolonization and inter-generational settler responsibility. She recently co-edited PUBLIC 64 Beyond Unsettling: Methodologies Towards Decolonized Futures and The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Art in the United States and Canada.  As a core research team member on several SSHRC grants, such as Inuit Futures, Thinking through the Museum and Counter Memory Activism she leads curatorial, publication and research creation projects as well as co-organizes public lecture series, workshops, and symposia.  Her current research project, Curating Change explores curatorial activisms in settler colonial contexts and mobilizes collaborative curatorial incubators as a methodology towards activating inter-cultural, decolonial and anti-racist social change.