Projects

Adina Farinango, 2020, in the ICCA’s Knowledge Within Us publication

Projects

ICCA Initiatives & Ideas

The Indigenous Curatorial Collective / Collectif des commissaires autochtones (ICCA) presents projects that speak to ideas and themes we are investigating.

Projects include: Publications, Roundtable Discussions, Artistic Interventions, Residencies, and other Creative Initiatives

Roundtables

Issues in Art, Curation and Community Cares

Black & Indigenous Perspectives

Francophone Perspectives

Northern Perspectives

Gender Minority, 2Spirit, Queer Perspectives

Accountability has become one of the most important focuses in our work. Being mindful of who has access to having their voices heard, and recognizing that there is often a privilege within the Indigenous arts sector that erases nuance within Indigenous communities and draws with broad strokes about the experiences, needs and support that Indigenous arts workers face and require. We have been aware of this issue within the ICCA as well, and have spoken at length about how we can work harder to broaden our own reach and be more accountable to the communities we represent in our work.

We wanted to create safe and explicitly anti-racist, anti-colonial and anti-homophobic/transphobic spaces to conduct conversations around diversity of experiences and discuss the needs and support for racialized, non-urban, and marginalized Indigenous peoples. Through months of research and conversations we have come to develop a four part roundtable series.

These roundtables highlight the diversity and pluralism of identities, issues, and experiences faced by Indigenous art workers. The roundtable series, titled Issues in Art, Curation and Community Care, focuses on the underrepresented voices of four communities: Black & Indigenous Perspectives; Francophone Perspectives; Northern Perspectives; and Gender Minority, 2Spirit, Queer Perspectives.

Responses

Reaching Inwards

Artistic Interventions

Sponsored by the Mackenzie Art Gallery

In 2021 the ICCA programmed four closed roundtables to take place amongst Indigenous communities that are often neglected from the National discourse on Indigenous arts, curation, and community care. The “ Issues in …” series explored the nuance and pluralism within the ICCA’s membership as well as the diversity within Indigenous communities across what is currently know as Canada, spotlighting Afro-Indigenous, Northern, Francophone, Queer and 2Spirit voices. Six months after the roundtables were held, the Mackenzie Art Gallery generously donate funds to the ICCA to support the continuation of the “Issues In…” series, allowing artists and writers from the highlighted communities to create new works in response to the roundtables. Click on the link below to explore the six incredible responses created by Cheyenne Wizzard-Jones, Paige Pettibon, Kijâtai-Alexandra Veillette-Cheezo, Aïcha Bastien-N’Diaye, Darcie Bernhardt and Adrienne Huard.

Publications

Activations of Solidarity: Co-Resistance and Care

Digital Publication

Activations of Solidarity: Co-resistance and Care is a digital publication that centres the embodied knowledges and experiences of Black, Afro-Indigenous, Indigenous, and Indigiqueer artists and the ways they enact solidarity and accountability within their communities. The title of this collection of artworks is inspired by the conversation between Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson published in Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada. In this dialogue moderated by Jas M. Morgan, Maynard and Simpson reflect on the future of Black and Indigenous sovereignties and self determination and how this is grounded in co-resistance and solidarity with one another. Each of the artists in this publication offer to us the ways in which they generate actions of solidarity within their communities and reject values embedded in the white supremacy system – colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism.

Gatherings

Framing Responsibility: A Gathering on Accountability

ICCA Hybrid Gathering
October 7 – 30
2022

The Indigenous Curatorial Collective / Collectif des commissaires autochtones (ICCA) is delighted to present its 2022 Annual Gathering Framing Responsibility: A Gathering on Accountability. For the last several years ICCA’s gathering has moved online because of the COVID-19 pandemic and we are thrilled that this year it will be a hybrid gathering with several in-person events. From October 7th-October 30th, a series of events (panels, workshops, and special activities) will be presented around the theme of our 2022 program, Accountability.

Rooted in the theme of care and accessibility that we began exploring in 2020, this gathering will give space to BIPOC art professionals, curators, artists, and educators (prioritizing those who intersect with having a disability/ies), to reflect, share, and center their work on knowledge and actions of taking/ encouraging accountability through various ways.

WHAT IS ACCOUNTABILITY?

To us at the ICCA, Accountability has many diverse meanings. It goes beyond words, and is more tangible in action. Our gathering this year will covers a variety of topics to engage these ideas, including disability justice in the arts sector, ways in which institutions can responsibly provide accessible and healing spaces for disabled, Deaf, Mad, Indigenous, Black communities and those who intersect alike, restorative justice in the Indigenous art world, and much more. We are looking forward to the unique perspective you will bring to the table!

For information on how to sponsor our programs, please contact us at info@icca.art