G.1.1 Radical Love—building monuments to trans revolutionaries in a summer of change

• Syrus Marcus Ware, McMaster University

This paper considers Radical Love, a creative project by Syrus Marcus Ware, the summer of uprisings of 2020 and abolitionist futures in the city-exemplified by what public art and monuments we create to mark what we hold valuable. I explore the context and process of creating Radical Love and its connections to Black and Trans activism in T’karon:to.

In the summer of 2020, a series of mass uprisings swept Turtle Island after the killing of George Floyd in the USA and the killing of Regis Korchinski-Paquet here in T’karon:to. Widespread protests in multiple formats posed up across the continent and brought Black communities and their allies in direct confrontation with white supremacists and policing forces. On June 17, 2020, drawing attention to monuments to slavery and colonialism- namely the monument of the policing system- activists splashed queer pink water based paint on the statues of Egerton Ryerson, the architect of both the Residential School system in Northern Turtle Island but also the apartheid regime in South Africa; John A McDonald, Canada’s first prime minister, and a white supremacist, anti indigenous and slaver, and the statue of King Edward IV that had been taken down as part of a decolonial process in India but was purchased through private ownership and installed in Queens Park in Tkaronto. For these actions, in particular targeting the Ryerson state, three people were arrested and detained for 36 hours, and faced a year of courts and charges and conditions. In the day following the arrests, Black and AfroIndigenous trans woman Ravyn Wngz took to the the mic at a press conference as called for a different kind of humanity—reminding us that our love was radical, it was abolitionist and for these reasons we are appealing to the publics humanity—simply splashing paint when we are being slaughtered by the police.

I will describe research and interviews that I did within Black and Indigenous trans communities to inform my project, Radical Love, a monument replacement project—a slow creative exploration of trans agency, creating a trans affirming city and building semi autonomous zones where a different, more trans library politic could exist. I will consider the creation of 3 large scale monuments of Black and AfroIndigenous non binary and trans women places at The Bentway in Toronto as part of their Safe in Public Space exhibition. I consider what these monuments are ‘doing’ to help build up an alternative after we tear down monuments to slavery ad colonialism and enact abolitionist principles in our lives.

G.1.2 Foregrounding care through the curation of the exhibition (un)happy objects at Artcite Inc.

Adrien Crossman, McMaster University

In the Fall of 2021, I curated (un)happy objects, a group exhibition at Artcite Inc in Windsor Ontario. Through the tactical use of humour, pop culture references, and familiar materials, the works invited conversations, refusing separation between the personal and the political, providing unconventional entry points into less “happy” topics. Originally conceived of in early 2018 and scheduled to open in June of 2020, the social, cultural, and political contexts surrounding the exhibition shifted tremendously from conception to fruition. In addition to pandemic related closures, Artcite released a statement in summer 2020 announcing they would be cancelling 50% of their scheduled programming and moving toward prioritizing Black, Indigenous and racialized artists through various programming initiatives. I was concerned about the possibility of (un)happy objects being used as a rebranding for a gallery ashamed of its history of racial exclusion, as the majority of the artists in the exhibition are racialized. Each artist expressed a desire to participate as planned, with a shared excitement about the exhibition and at having the opportunity to exhibit alongside well-respected peers, while simultaneously holding a shared lack of faith / pessimism about the potential these institutions have to change or to effect change.

Using (un)happy objects as a case study, I propose to discuss the benefits of slow curation and the role of curator as collaborator and mediator between artist and institution while foregrounding care. After providing context for how I curate the way I do, I discuss the following three methods:

1. Creating an exhibition of existing work so that artists are compensated for their previous labour
2. Being in constant communication with artists and keeping them apprised of any changes
3. Striving to work collaboratively and co-create a vision in a non-hierarchical fashion

G.1.3 Slow Curating: A Practical Guide for Curating with Care and Reciprocity

• Megan Arney Johnston, Century College/St Paul University

Slow is not about time, per se, it’s about connection. The disruptive nature of COVID, recent social unrest throughout the world, and the rapid global consumerism has meant that museums/artists/curators have increasingly become more socially aware. Many museums have begun to implement sweeping changes in how they engage with the sociopolitical context and audiences. Some call for “mindful museums” (Janes, 2009), “participatory museums” (Simon, 2010), “museum activism” (Janes & Sandell 2019) or community-facing organizations (Black 2012, Kwon 2004, Sandell 2010, Pollock 2007). I call for a “permeable museum” and employ socially engaged curatorial practices.

Museums need to change, and I offer up in this proposed presentation the Slow Curating framework for more relevant, relational experiences. The call for change reflected in this proposal is based on the Slow Movement, including locality, which is about working with and responding to communities on creative projects; intentionality, which is about the relational pace of interactions with others; and connection and the activated space between the institution and audiences and objects and viewers. This “slow” process is indeed highly responsive and prioritizes care in relationships—with staff, artists, audiences, and communities. Given the need to quickly react to the sociopolitical context, Slow Curating provides a way to do so in a highly reflective and respectful way. Slow is an approach, not just a pace. Slow Curating is a reflective framework embracing polyvocality, human connection, and place-based, contextual exhibition-making. As a social practice, it aims to disrupt and re-imagine curatorial roles, exhibition production, knowledge, memory, and processes of mediation—from project inception to presentation.

The presentation will highlight the Slow Curating framework through no more than three examples, including museum and public art projects. Step -by-step, I will delineate and describe the Slow Curating process, fleshing out the seven-step framework and propagate interest in the process.

G.1.4 Playing it Slow: Environmental Movement in the Itinerant Museum

• Eugenia Kisin, New York University
• Kirsty Robertson, University of Western Ontario

Boulder kites made from rubbings of glacier erratics; a willow-box that remediates lead-contaminated soil; mycelium ancestors that require daily care and feeding. Site-specific and immersive, such practices of experiential art-science and “slow curating” complicate what it means to publicly display contemporary art and ecological relations. Through an “oceanic lens” (Helmreich and Jones 2018), this talk considers frameworks for accountability—both material and moral expectations of eco-installation—and how student-led and pedagocially-based curating can practice these ways of relating while we “play museum” (a phrase borrowed from curator Maria Lind). We focus on the implications of water-based and durational curatorial practices as they emerge from three initiatives: A Museum for Future Fossils, a modular summer field school focused on understanding/responding to the Anthropocene through art practices; the Centre for Sustainable Curating, a new site for studying and creating exhibitions with ecological awareness; and the NYU-Gallatin WetLab, an art-science initiative on Governors Island, a former military site and emerging center for climate research.

keywords: critical museology, curatorial practice, pedagogy, art-science, environmental justice