CAA News Today

The CAA Conversations Podcast continues the vibrant discussions initiated at our Annual Conference. Listen in as educators explore arts and pedagogy, tackling everything from the day-to-day grind to the big, universal questions of the field.

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This podcast explores key concepts of decolonization, settler responsibility, and treaty principles. Join Dr. Julie Hollenbach in conversation with Dr. Carla Taunton in a dynamic dialogue that considers key ideas and concepts of decolonization. Hollenbach and Taunton discuss the potential roles and responsibilities of white-settler scholars in decolonizing and unsettling initiatives within museums, academia, and the classroom to include the movement towards decolonial accomplice focused methodologies.

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 and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the department of Cultural Studies at Queen’s University. She is the Special Advisor to the VP Academic and Research, Social Justice and Decolonization. Her research contributes to arts-based critiques of settler colonialism, Indigenous arts and methodologies, contemporary Canadian art and activism, museum and curatorial studies, as well as theories of decolonization, anti-colonialism and settler responsibility. Her recent publications include, “Unsettling Canadian Heritage: Decolonial Aesthetics in Canadian Video and Performance Art,” with Sarah E.K Smith in Journal Canadian Studies (2018), “Embodying Sovereignty: Indigenous Women’s Performance Art in Canada,” in Narratives Unfolding (2017), and “Performing Sovereignty: Forces to be Reckoned With” in More Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women (2016). She co-edited PUBLIC 54: Indigenous Art, the first special issue on global Indigenous new media and digital arts, and RACAR: Continuities Between Eras: Indigenous Arts (2017). She is an independent curator and was a curatorial team member for Abadakone at the National Gallery of Canada (2019). Taunton’s recent collaborative research projects include: The GLAM Collective, The Pilimmaksarniq/Pijariuqsarniq Project: Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership (2017), and The Archive/Counter-Archive: Activating Canada’s Moving Image Heritage (2017).

Julie Hollenbach is a queer white-settler scholar also at NSCAD University where she is an Assistant Professor of Craft History and Material Culture. Her work addresses craft practices and craft cultures at the intersections of history and location, tradition and ritual, contact and connection, meaning and use. Julie’s curatorial and academic research is influenced by queer, feminist, anti-racist and decolonial methodologies. If you’d like to learn more about her work, check out an article she published online with Studio magazine entitled, “Moving Beyond a Modern Craft: Thoughts on White Entitlement and Cultural Appropriation in Professional Craft in Canada,” or check out her recent curatorial project Unpacking the Living Room at Mount St. Vincent University Art Gallery. A website chronicling and documenting the exhibition can be found at: www.unpackingthelivingroommsvu.ca.