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Call for Papers: A Two-spirit/Indigiqueer Critique: A Look at the Contemporary Scholarship in the Visual Arts

Dr. Michelle McGeough (Concordia University) invites your consideration of the following panel proposal for NAASA 2023, Halifax.

During the last thirty years, we have witnessed a growing body of scholarship examining what Qwo-Li Driskill identified as a two-spirit critique and its’ deployment as a means of addressing issues such as colonialism, queerphobia, racism, and misogyny.[1]  While this form of critique has been used primarily to examine the literary arts, very little has been published regarding its application to the visual arts. This panel welcomes papers that address how Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer modes of critique not only further our decolonial struggles but celebrate our desire, intimacy and joy. 

This session is intended to provide a forum to explore how art historians and artists are expanding upon this form of critique and its’ application to the discipline of art history. The panel encourages papers and/or artist presentations that examine artistic and cultural production that centers a two spirit/Indigiqueer critique.

Contact Dr. McGeough at michelle.mcgeough@concordia.ca.

[1] Qwo-Li Driskill, “Doubleweaving Two-Spirit Critique: Building Alliances between Native and Queer Studies. GLQ 16, no 1-2(April  2010; 16 (1-2):69-92

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Unsettling homocolonial frames of remembrance: Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer interventions at the museum

Angela Failler has recently published “Unsettling Homocolonial Frames of Remembrance: Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Interventions at the Museum” in Memory Studies, volume 16, issue 1. Read the full article here.

Abstract: This article considers a Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer protest at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as a flashpoint that exposes problems with how memory-making institutions are incorporating lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer issues into their programming and/or collections. The protest brings into relief the museum’s investment in a homocolonial framing of remembrance for the way in which the telling of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer ‘progress’ is entangled with a settler colonial political economy wherein the tokenistic inclusion of some queers into the sexual citizenry happens alongside the dispossession, devaluing and criminalizing of others. I then undertake some preliminary ‘curatorial dreaming’ upon two other interventions–commentaries uploaded to a digital story bank by a Two-Spirit and an Indigenous queer museumgoer, and the short film Woman Dress by Plains Cree artist TJ Cuthand. Along with the protest, the commentaries and the film unsettle homocolonial frames of remembrance and provide critical openings towards decolonial queer memory work at the museum.

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Indigiqueering Oral Traditions: A Conversation with Thirza Cuthand and Michelle McGeough

This event is happening online! To join and receive the Zoom link, register via email: l.bosc@uwinnipeg.ca.

March 4, 2021 | 12-1pm (UTC-6) | ZOOM

Thirza Cuthand has been making short experimental narrative videos and films since 1995 about sexuality, madness, Queer identity and love, and Indigeneity, which have screened in festivals internationally. She is of Plains Cree and Scots descent, a member of Little Pine First Nation, and currently resides in Toronto, Canada.

Michelle McGeough is a Métis scholar, artist, and Assistant Professor of Art History at Concordia University. Her research interests have focused on the Indigenous Two-Spirit identity. She is working on a manuscript that examines Indigenous understandings of gender fluidity and the impact these notions have on artistic production.

This event is made possible with support from the Margaret Lawrence Endowment Fund, the University of Winnipeg, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

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#CMHRSTOPLYING | MUSEUM QUEERIES JOINT STATEMENT

It has come to our attention that there is some confusion about the distinction and relationship between Museum Queeries and #CMHRstoplying. In an attempt to clarify this misunderstanding, we issue the following joint statement:

Museum Queeries is an interdisciplinary research project based out of the University of Winnipeg. It prioritizes Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, and queer (2S+LGBTTQ) contributions and interventions into museums and museum studies. #CMHRstoplying is the hashtag created specifically by Thiané Diop to hold the Canadian Museum for Human Rights accountable for its anti-blackness and other forms of racism within the institution as a whole. While Thiané Diop works as a Research Assistant with Museum Queeries, her involvement with #CMHRstoplying is a separate initiative. For those interested in Museum Queeries, we invite you to contact either of its co-founders, Dr. Angela Failler (a.failler@uwinnipeg.ca) or Dr. Heather Milne (h.milne@uwinnipeg.ca) at the University of Winnipeg. If you are interested in #CMHRstoplying, we invite you to get in touch with the team through their Instagram platform.

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Visit to Two-Spirit Archives

Albert McLeod speaks to a group of visitors at the Two-Spirit Archives. Photo credit: Lauren Bosc

On January 24, 2020, members of Museum Queeries research team visited the Two-Spirit Archives, housed at the University of Winnipeg. This visit included a roundtable discussion led by Albert McLeod (Co-Director, Two-Spirited People of Manitoba), the main donor of the fonds/material of the collection. Click here to read timely “SnapThought” responses to exhibitions, galleries, and museum spaces from our research assistants and research team!

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Visit to Kent Monkman Exhibit at Winnipeg Art Gallery

Local drag superstar Prairie Sky speaks to visitors at Kent Monkman's Shame and Prejudice exhibit at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
Local drag superstar Prairie Sky speaks to visitors at Kent Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice exhibit at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Photo credit: Chris Eastman

On December 13, 2019, members of Museum Queeries research team visited the Winnipeg Art Gallery for a Community-led Conversation with local drag queen Prairie Sky on Kent Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice. Click here to read timely “SnapThought” responses to exhibitions, galleries, and museum spaces from our research assistants and research team!

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Curatorial Dreaming at the CMHR and Manitoba Museum

From July 22-23, 2019, student research assistants involved with Museum Queeries came together for a workshop to dream curatorial revisions and newly imagined exhibits at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and the Manitoba Museum.

This workshop, organized by Museum Queeries leaders Drs. Heather Milne and Angela Failler and facilitated by Research Associate Nicole Ritchie, began with an overview of the practice of curatorial dreaming as outlined by Erica Lehrer and Shelley Ruth Butler in their edited collection Curatorial Dreams: Critics Imagine Exhibitions, challenging the students, as critics, to envision their own exhibitions.

Grounded in this idea, the first day of the workshop included a visit to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights where the group was led on one of the museum’s Pride Tours. After the tour, the group was encouraged to “queer the labels” featured in the CMHR and reimagine how the museum’s queer content could be altered to be more inclusive and representative.

To complement this experience, the second day of the workshop included a short introductory presentation by Research Coordinator Lauren Bosc and a self-guided visit to the Manitoba Museum. After this visit, students were encouraged to “imagine queerness” within the museum, which, unlike the CMHR, does not include any queer histories or representations. Because of this, students imagined and designed their own queer exhibit and interventions into the Manitoba Museum’s various galleries.

Coming together after both tours, this workshop allowed research assistants to re-envision exhibits such as “Taking the Cake” on same-sex marriage in the CMHR and imagine queer Manitoban histories in the Manitoba Museum’s Urban Gallery (among many other generative and creative curatorial dreams).

To hear the perspective of one of the workshop attendees, Amelia Dawn Smith, check out her post “Curatorial Dreaming: A Museum Queeries Workshop” featured here in Musings.

(photo credits: Lauren Bosc)

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Congress 2019: Museum Queeries RAs Present their Work

Left to right: Dallas Cant, Thiané Diop, Angela Failler, Nicole Ritchie, Claire Wright, and Jase Falk (photo credit: Lauren Bosc)

An interdisciplinary team of Research Assistants (RAs) presented their research at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Sexuality Studies Association/L’association des études de la sexualité. The meeting, which took place as a part of the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities in Vancouver, BC, from June 2-4, included these students on a panel titled “Museum Queeries: Thinking Through the Museum.”

Each student presented work evolving from their projects as research assistants supervised by UWinnipeg faculty members Dr. Angela Failler (Women’s and Gender Studies) and Dr. Heather Milne (English).

Chaired by Museum Queeries Research Associate Nicole Ritchie (York University), the panel featured:

  • Disrupting the Archive: Sex Work, Displacement, and Development in Winnipeg, by Dallas Cant
  • Collecting Experience in Idea Museums, by Claire Wright
  • Archiving Trans History, by Jase Falk
  • Queer Black Bodies and the Museum, by Thiané Diop
(photo credit: Lauren Bosc)

The conference was an excellent opportunity for these RAs to not only share their engaging projects with their peers, but also to attend and participate in other panels that were related to their work.

For more information on the Sexuality Studies Association’s Meeting, see their website.

For more information about these RAs, check out the Research Assistants page.