CEREV recently hosted a roundtable on collaborative curating and research. Three exemplary scholars and public intellectuals – Ruth Phillips, Corry Kratz, and Bob White — rose to the occasion by addressing “big questions” related to the topic at hand. Having helped to draft framing questions for the discussion, I can attest that we asked a lot of our guests. We sought information on best collaborative curatorial practices and research methodologies, as well as reflections on limitations, failures, and ambiguities. Our guests offered wonderfully concrete and detailed information and examples.

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In the last three months during our Internship in Concordia University, we have learnt a lot under the guidance of CEREV technical director Lex Milton. We started meeting once a week, but spent more time leading up to our presentation on May 3rd, when we showcased the websites we made and other work we have done.

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Image from the Returning the Voices to Kouchibouguac National Park website.

Professeur Rudin a également écrit une version en français pour Qu’est-ce qui se passe.

In 1969 the Canadian and New Brunswick governments agreed to create Kouchibouguac National Park along the east coast of the province. At the time, establishment of a national park required removing the people who resided there, in the belief that nature should be exhibited to visitors without signs of any human presence. Over 1200 individuals, 260 families living in seven separate communities, were uprooted, having been told that their lives were worthless and that they could only be helped by being forced to move. While these individuals were far from wealthy, they had built lives that they valued, based upon the resources of the region–the forests, the land, and especially the waters that they fished. The government statistics that led to the conclusion that they were impoverished could not take into account either the fish and farm products that they consumed or the barter that often took place between families. Conveniently written off as worthless, the residents were offered little compensation and sent off to fend for themselves elsewhere.

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Montreal-based writer Amber Berson shares her reflections on the workshop titled “The Form of Violence / The Form of Exhibition” presented by Liz Park for Invisible Violence at CEREV (The Centre for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the Aftermath of Violence) at Concordia University on February 27.

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February 28 marked the first day of a three-day symposium on contemporary Indigenous film, media arts and exhibitionary practice, TRANSMISSIONS: Sharing Indigenous Knowledge and Histories in the Digital Era. Through workshops, a film screening, an interactive art installation and a public symposium, Concordia students and faculty joined the Canadian Aboriginal creative and intellectual community in a dialogue on sharing Indigenous knowledge and histories in the digital era. This workshop was a production of Concordia’s CEREV lab, organized by Department of Art History faculty member and CEREV affiliate Heather Igloliorte, and generously sponsored by CEREV, the Department of Art History, the Faculty of Fine Arts, the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, the Inuit Art Research Group, and AbTec (Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace).

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