Aesthetics of Reconciliation
TRC = Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Aesthetics of Reconciliation, re-post
Composed this for a private blog, a working group on the Aesthetics of Reconciliation, so some of the references are directly about that process and might seem a bit unclear. However, thought the general gist of it would come through and since I've been mulling over these questions for some time, thought I'd share them more widely through the cicac space.
(Originally posted to the Aesthetics of Reconciliation blog, June 28/2012)
Hello all, and thank you so much for opening the virtual doors to this blog to our small group so we might be able to share and contribute as best we can to your very engaged and engaging project.
As some of you know, we have been working on a couple of fronts -- a TRC research grant and an upcoming SSHRC-supported innovation forum -- to reflect on the intersections of art and reconciliation. The notion of how 'art' can be an expressive language, perhaps potentially more useful and bridging than critical and/or policy discourses, is one we hope to pursue during our own 'research trajectory,' which, to be frank, I see more as a series of opportunities to meet/think/create than of traditionally-produced published outcomes (or, to use the language of the day, 'deliverables').
My first incursion into this terrain was perhaps prompted by the invitation from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation to edit the third of three volumes investigating reconciliation in all its manifestations. The expressed desire was for this volume to contain the thoughts and reflections of non-Aboriginal, non-white settlers/immigrants, but through a series of necessary discussions, this quickly transcended into a book that also took on the question of artistic sensibility when negotiating the tricky arena of reconciliation. Much of my work as a research chair has focussed on creative practice within the milieu of social justice, as might be recalled by folks on this blog such as Sam, Pauline, and Jonathan who all attended a think-tank session at my centre in Kamloops on this a few years back now. More recently, and thanks to some of our external funding support, we were able to meet with others who are also on this blog, such as Sophie and Peter, in a more focussed discussion on the necessary blueprint for melding art+reconciliation. This latter meeting developed ideas that ladder directly into our Algoma symposium and artistic 'incubation', an event we are excited will now include a fair number of you who have worked so hard at the SSHRC Insight Dev't grant. More on the Algoma event later (perhaps from Jonathan, who is newly situated there, or from Sophie, whose diligence brought us the SSHRC funding to produce this get-together).
But first, in following what several of you have referenced re recent TRC gatherings, a few reflections that, I hope, make some meaning of the somewhat grandiose title of this post. I've been an attending witness (more so than a participant, I would say) at regional gatherings in Kamloops, Victoria, and the similarly-mandated Vancouver setup that addressed the potential for a National Research Centre on Reconciliation (this, not without its problems, but will leave that for now), as well as national gatherings in Winnipeg and Halifax (but not Inuvik for its prohibitive travel costs, and not Saskatoon, though I had planned on such, for what I would coin as a type of trc-fatigue). The very first event I attended was in Kamloops, held a the Arbour on the Secwepemc Nation, interestingly enough the regular site of the annual powwow. It was there I began to question the relevance of reconciliation discourse to non-Aboriginals, or, indeed, those outside the subset of survivors of IRS. Certainly, an interest was not reflected in attendance where, I would estimate, a majority of the non-Aboriginal attendees were in some fashion attached to clergy or TRC apparatus. (This demographic was quite different in Victoria, however, and I wonder if this is the result of a lapse of time that has allowed the concept to be absorbed in a national imaginary or just a regional quirk specific to the politic of Vancouver Island, though neither can I attest to with any certainty.) It was in Kamloops that a colleague -- who had been working administrative sides associated with the TRC -- and I took a break from the events and wandered to the Secwepemc museum grounds (an exceptional space, built on the grounds and structures of the former residential school in Kamloops, that explores pre- and post-contact conditions). It was a blistering hot and sunny day typical of the BC interior in July, and we found ourselves at the low door opening of a rebuilt traditional pithouse/C7istkteñ. A good 15 degrees cooler inside, deep dark mud walls illuminated only through the top chimney that, once eyes were adjusted from the desert sun, was enough to create a soft and even light throughout, my friend told me of the the not infrequent and quite-literal physical illnesses that followed statement-gathereres after they had performed their duties at TRC events. How can one record these stories on tape, I realized, without recording their effects on the body? If I had even a passing interest up to that point on critical analyses on TRCs (in Canada and abroad, having met artists in both Northern Ireland and South Africa in prior years), I think I sloughed it off at that moment. Not, I should emphasize, a loss of interest in critical attention to this critical subject, and I appreciate hugely the contributions other have made and continue to make in the face of this difficulty, but my own contemplative realization, echoing Adorno here perhaps, that after such practiced and calculated genocidal plans that created residential schools (now, there's a 'deliverable'), how can we re-enter this space without reinscribing that colonial template? Others have named this in different ways on this blog, a desire not to be caught up in the hype and, for lack of a better term, professionalizing ourselves as reconciliation specialists. I saw this impulse in Winnipeg where an assortment of tents scattered the Forks area, some as gathering places for statements, others as facilities for creative or spiritual expression, and one as an ad hoc conference tent, replete with program and scheduled papers, and not without surprise, in that post-3-paper discussion period that we are so familiar with as academics, a survivor angrily demanded to know what any of the delivered material had to do with real lives, with his life, and wasn't that what the entire gathering was supposed to be about?
So, how are we to perform if we are to engage at all? Art may seem a logical step, but witness the TRC's own call for creative expression, both unpaid and highly mediated, such that some of the more provocative and invested artists of our time have been denied an opportunity to share their work because of a (legal? moral? practical?) fear that their art will deepen the psychological and emotional wounds that already seem beyond repair. That very question led us to recent gatherings, in Vancouver and Kamloops, to explore how best (or how, if at all) to reconcile the art of reconciliation, as it were. We can't forget that for many artists, Indigenous and non-Indigneous, the pressing questions are often about resistance, decolonization, counter-storytelling as a much more effective avenue toward the putative goals of reconciliation -- that is, a fair and balanced contemporary reality, if such a thing is imaginable at all. Still, if attempts are worth anything, how do we proceed? One powerful emerging concept that came from our Kamloops think-tank (including artists Alex Janvier, Peter Morin, Tania Willard, Jaimie Issac, Kevin Loring, Jaime Black, and a few others plus our TRC-funded team) was the idea that such artistic practice required nourishment and collective development. The term "incubation" was raised, a way of bringing artists into a space, bringing their histories and ongoing projects, to negotiate such a pathway. This, and mercifully, where I will stop, is the intention of Algoma. Working with team member and exceptional curator Steve Loft, we hope to explore methods and modes of taking art into this field of reconciliation, posing a series of projects that will result in an exhibition, touring or not, aiming for 2014, but with a preview of sorts in Vancouver to coincide with the TRC national gathering. Discussion so far with Glenn Alteen at Grunt Gallery and an initial reach out to Sabine Bitter at the Audain, which would be a likely space for such work. This may be a nice tandem with what the 'insight-development' cohort is looking at for artistic interventions at the remaining national gatherings, and certainly gives us fodder for consideration.
So that's it for me, but with one sincere caveat. The TRC has given us an opportunity to forefront the idea of reconciliation, perhaps with good results and not just good intentions. But, and here I side with the likes of Glen Coulthard and others, I have to see the entire discourse of reconciliation as a project with a definitive 'best-before' date. While useful to investigate at this stage, I think the somewhat conciliatory notion of reconciliation will give way (and, in certain quarters, already has) to more vibrant attitudes of decolonization, resistance, rebellion, and not a small amount of good old bloody-mindedness -- a way not just to enter into a consciousness of a nation-state and its people, but to radically alter that state of being.
That is all for me for this moment, with due appreciation for indulgences and a true desire to see how we can work on the next stages with an amazing group of minds.
