Museums, Decolonization and Indigenous Artists as First Cultural Responders at the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Abstract

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) is part of a global movement of human-rights–driven museums that commemorate atrocity-related events through exhibitions aimed to communicate a national social consciousness. However, museums in Canada are increasingly understood to contribute to the perpetuation of settler colonial memory regimes as dominant narratives of national identity. Through the analysis of theexhibit ‘Aborigina lWomen and the Right to Safety and Justice’, this article explores how museums in represent difficult knowledge and act as sites of decolonization, while suggesting how shared authority and nuanced Indigenous art forms might play a role in both. It posits that if museums in settler colonial societies are to evolve beyond the pretext of detached host, they must not only acknowledge past atrocities and injustices against Indigenous peoples, but also consistently examine the colonial logics and inventions that permeate colonizing and decolonizing exhibitions.

Unsettling national narratives and multiplying voices: the art museum as renewed space for social advocacy and decolonization – a Canadian case study

“…Of course, to truly effect systemic change and counter white supremacy requires more than simply tackling exhibitions. As myself and other scholars have argued elsewhere, museums must also diversify collections, adjust their acquisitions and programming priorities, hire more staff members of colour; diversify their boards; and fortify relationships with IBPOC communities (Anderson 2019;Coffee 2008;Harris 2018;Janes and Sandell 2019;McKernan 2020) Nevertheless, in the wake of renewed global protests for social justice and racial equality the rethinking of display traditions of a museum's permanent collection galleries so that visitors might critically probe the stories told and untold in a country's national art collection is an important step in the right direction.…”

“…New and critical museological practices advocate for the inherent power of museums as forces for good, and as activists in their exhibition and curatorial practices. This activist trend in thinking and practice calls for museums' purposeful involvement in bringing about social change by (a) addressing urgent contemporary global issues and injustices such as the oppression and systemic discrimination of women and IBPOC and LGBTQ+ peoples and the environmental and migrant crises; (b) recognizing that curators should no longer be the only authoritative producers of exhibitions; (c) curating difficult knowledge; and (d) instituting decolonizing policies, practices, and exhibitions (Anderson 2018(Anderson , 2019Lonetree 2012;Janes and Sandell 2019;Simon 2011Simon , 2014Smith 2012).…”