thinking through
–——– the museum

 

brings together university researchers, museum professionals, and members of diverse communities to respond to colonial legacies and other histories of injustice with new forms of engagement.

 
 
 

The team works in and beyond museum settings to co-produce exhibitions and design tools, and to explore alternative forms of heritage mobilization where communities can set their own agendas.

 
 
 

research clusters

 
 
 
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Unsettling/
Indigenizing Museology (UIM)

  • Indigenous and Settler scholars and curators interrogate and develop ‘Indigenizing’ and decolonial museum theory and praxis using comparative research and critical curatorial practice.

  • UIM engages First Nations, Metis, and Inuit artists in reinterpreting historical collections in PEI to challenge the colonial underpinnings of the Confederation Centre; collaborates with Black and Indigenous youth in Halifax on an exhibit for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; and partners with the Native American Art Studies Association and the Canadian Museums Association.

  • We are debating and publishing Canada’s first critical reexamination of the groundbreaking 1994 Task Force Report on Museums and First Peoples in light of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action.

National Heritage & Traumatic Memory (NHTM)

  • NHTM explores how arts-based practices can help circumvent institutional constraints and engage communities at non-traditional sites using performative modes of display and participation.

  • Working primarily in Poland, NHTM considers how histories of feudalism, colonialism, the Holocaust, and communism meet, and experiments with forms of reflection, redress, and repair to address the region’s violently-lost historical diversity. We develop context-sensitive concepts and tools to remedy gaps in both global and local debates.

  • We collaborate with communities to develop resources addressing Poland’s marginalized Jewish, Roma, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, African-diaspora, LGBTQ+ and refugee communities with audio guides, performative tours, minority artist residencies, and museum interventions. A groundbreaking workshop in Washington, DC in 2023 brings together the National Museum of the American Indian and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to discuss trauma, memory, and material culture.

 
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Museum Queeries (MQ)

  • We focus on Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, intersex, and asexual (2S+LGBTTQIA) contributions and interventions in museums and museum studies as a means of addressing structural exclusions and opening new modes of inquiry and activism.

  • MQ is particularly interested in how queering, decolonizing, and anti-racist strategies might work together to change museum cultures. “Queering” here addresses representations of gender and sexuality, and is also about challenging White privilege, racism, settler colonialism, and ageism, among other systems of oppression, as they intersect with transphobia and homophobia in museum and curatorial contexts.

  • MQ develops intersectional projects with other clusters, e.g. an exhibit featuring Two-Spirit and Indiqueer (Indigenous queer) artistic production that unsettles narratives of sexual and gender diversity that privilege White lives and experiences.

Critical Race Museology

  • CRM examines how museums and galleries are implicated in the production of race and racism, analyzing racialized collections and exhibitionary spaces with attention to gender, sexuality, class, colonialism, and nationalism on local, national, and global levels.

  • CRM applies critical race theory to update permanent exhibitions in two major Canadian museums attracting over a million visitors each year (the Africa Gallery at the Royal Ontario Museum and the One World Gallery at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) and uses workshops and advocacy to change exclusionary institutional practices and habits.

  • We engage in sustained collaboration with a diverse group of fairly-compensated local Black cultural workers, artists, and university students to develop relevant, meaningful exhibitions that combat anti-Black racism and promote nuanced understandings of communities and national cultures.

 
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Children’s Museology (CM)

  • We address research questions through development of critical museology by, for, and about children.

  • CM recognizes children as important social actors and agents of change. We help museums evolve using content critique and co-creation to challenge the ways they represent and engage with young people.

  • Curatorial workshops with Black children in the Cape Flats region outside Cape Town, South Africa will result in collaborative exhibits in South Africa and Canada, and a Curating with Children handbook.

 

emerging scholars and practitioners committee

 

The Emerging Scholars and Practitioners Committee (ESPC) supports students, research assistants/associates (RAs) and affiliates linked to TTTM to promote their professional growth, create opportunities for their own emerging projects, and ensure a safe and secure working environment. ESPC mobilizes the potential for new generations of scholars and practitioners to engage with pressing issues and innovative ideas in museum theory and practice, promotes the recognition of its members’ labour, and facilitates their active participation within and beyond TTTM.

 
 
 

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