thinking through
–——– the museum

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.

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.

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.

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.