Hosted by Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance in Canada
SSHRC Partnership Development Project
August 12-14, 2019
Toronto, ON
SYMPOSIUM AT A GLANCE
MONDAY, AUGUST 12
Location: Art Museum, 15 King’s College Circle, University of Toronto Boardroom
9:30-10:00am Supervisory Committee Arrival (catered light breakfast)
10:00am - 11:45am Gatherings Supervisory Committee Meeting
12:00pm -1:30pm Lunch – open to all (catered at Art Museum)
2:00pm - 5:00pm Afternoon session: In Conversation with Tracy Tidgwell, Bodies in Translation Research Project Manager
Bodies in Translation/Re:Vision Project (University of Guelph)
Facilitated by Jenn Cole
END OF DAY
Dinner on your own
Summerworks is on for those interested http://summerworks.ca/ Considering Curation Symposium August 12-14, 2019 PROGRAM p. 2
Archival & Oral Histories of Performance
TUESDAY, AUGUST 13
Location:
Art Gallery of Ontario
317 Dundas St W
Prints and Drawing Centre
9:30am - Arrival
*Please arrive at 9:30am sharp as we will have to be escorted to our location. The gallery does not open until 10am so you won’t be able to make your way on your own. The tour will begin at 10am sharp so arriving early will give everyone time to settle etc.
10:00am-12:00pm Conservation Tour with Sherry Phillips, Conservator, Contemporary & Inuit Art
12:00-1:30pm Lunch, Sin and Redemption, 136 McCaul Street
2pm - 5pm Interpretive Planning Session with John Summers, Museum Studies,
University of Toronto
Creating Exhibits That Engage: A Very Short Introduction
Group Dinner, Valens http://www.valens.ca
19 Baldwin St.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14
Location: Stephen’s House
50 Wolfrey Ave.
Near the Broadview Subway Station.
This will be a child-friendly event
10am - 12pm Closing Reflections and Breakfast (catered)
END OF SYMPOSIUM Considering Curation Symposium August 12-14, 2019 PROGRAM p. 3
Archival & Oral Histories of Performance
CONSIDERING CURATION DETAILED PROGRAM INFORMATION AND BIOS
Welcome to Considering Curation. Over two days we shall engage in workshops to help us consider curation from the perspectives of collections care and preservation, exhibition installation and interpretation, interpretive planning and digital storytelling.
Topics of discussion to carry with us through our time together might include the following:
shifting collections and exhibition policies,
the dilemma of liveness in museums and galleries,
interpretive planning as intervention,
arts- and social justice-informed use of digital platforms for storytelling and oral history dissemination,
individual action within institutional structures,
the impact of the material needs of archival objects on curatorial decision-making.
As we meet with experts Tracy Tidgwell, Sherry Phillips and John Summers, who work in in digital arts and social justice, contemporary art conservation and museum studies, respectively, we shall inquire, how will the Gatherings collective’s specialized knowledge in performance and embodied practices meet, challenge and develop frameworks, practices and methodologies developed for material archival and art objects?
These sessions and discussion will move us towards the Gatherings’ mandate “to help to encourage a more complete understanding of how performance pervades and informs the many cultures that share this country: performance in all regions of the country; performance of all genres and idioms; and performance by the broadest spectrum of participants.”
ABOUT GATHERINGS—ARCHIVAL AND ORAL HISTORIES
Gatherings—Archival and Oral Histories, is a project initiated to serve the preservation and study of our performance histories. Our research project is funded in part through a Partnership Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, with the support of a number of academic institutions from across the country, and with the crucial participation of the Theatre Museum Canada, Dance Collection Danse, and Playwrights Canada Press, all leaders in the preservation and dissemination of our performance heritage.
The Project has three main goals: Gathering Together, Gathering Networks, and Extending Definitions.
Gathering Together The first goal is to develop a partnership with the purpose of collecting, archiving, and disseminating the history of theatre and performance in the territories commonly referred to as Canada. Participants will support one another in pilot projects using archival research and interviews, paying particular attention to the documentary evidence and oral histories of Canadian theatre and performance. In the process we shall compile an online set of guidelines, specific to the study of performance, that can be used by local and regional historians.
Gathering Networks The second goal is to develop a network of other interested scholars, institutions, and collectives, in the process establishing a broader partnership serving the study of, and public education in Canadian performance.
Extending Definitions We hope, with this project, to encourage a more complete understanding of how performance pervades and informs the many cultures that share this country. This includes performance in all regions of the country, performance of all genres and idioms, and performance by the broadest spectrum of participants.
More information is available in our Partnership Description below, and through the examples contributed for our Pilot Projects.
DETAILED SCHEDULE AND PRESENTER BIOS
MONDAY, AUGUST 12
Location: Art Museum, University of Toronto
Boardroom
9:30-10:00am Supervisory Committee Arrival (catered light breakfast)
10:00am - 11:45am Gatherings Supervisory Committee Meeting
12:00pm -1:30pm Lunch – open to all (catered at Art Museum)
2:00pm - 5:00pm Afternoon Session: In Conversation with Tracy Tidgwell, Bodies in Translation Research Project Manager
Bodies in Translation/Re:Vision Project (University of Guelph)
Facilitated by Jenn Cole
This conversation will emphasize digital storytelling process and the virtual exhibition of oral histories.
Tracy Tidgwell is a community organizer, researcher, activist, and cultural producer who has been working in the folds of Toronto’s queer arts communities over the past many years in performance, video, analog photography, and writing. She explores process, connection, creativity, love, and queerness in all of her work and is dedicated to the wellness, resilience, and liberation of all people. Tracy is the Research
Project Manager at Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice at the University of Guelph and manages Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology and Access to Life, a 7-year SSHRC Partnership project that creates collaborations between artists, arts organizations, activists, scholars, and educators and cultivates art produced by disabled, d/Deaf, fat, Mad, and E/elder people with the goal of expanding understandings of vitality and advancing social justice.
https://revisioncentre.ca/about/who-we-are/revision-team/tracy-tidgwell
https://revisioncentre.ca/projects/bodies-in-translation
https://revisioncentre.ca/
END OF DAY
Dinner on your own
Summerworks is on for those interested http://summerworks.ca/ Considering Curation Symposium August 12-14, 2019 PROGRAM p. 6
Archival & Oral Histories of Performance
TUESDAY, AUGUST 13
Location:
Art Gallery of Ontario
317 Dundas St W
Prints and Drawing Centre
Lunch and dinner reservations have been made, details below
9:30 a.m. Arrival
*Please arrive at 9:30am sharp as we will have to be escorted to our location. The gallery does not open until 10am so you won’t be able to make your way on your own. The tour will begin at 10am sharp so arriving early will give everyone time to settle etc.
10:00am-12:00 pm Conservation Tour with Sherry Phillips, Conservator Contemporary and Inuit Art
On this tour Sherry will take us to the Inuit Art vault (not open to the public) to discuss storage, collection care and her approach to preservation with living artists. From there we will travel to the J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous and Canadian Art (permanent collection) where Sherry will share her knowledge and experience of installing and caring for the exhibition of contemporary art objects and installations that are part of the permanent collection. To end, we will visit one or more visiting exhibitions for a chat about installation, and how contemporary art conservators might lean in on the world of performance for documentation and interpretation.
The tour will be intimate and casual, encouraging discussion and reflection as we go. The sites we will visit aim to draw attention to shifts in museum/gallery collections and preservation policies and relationships with living artists as well as the dilemma of liveness in these institutional spaces. Sherry’s extensive experience will provide insight into how individuals negotiate personal practice and ethics within the structure of institutional policies and mandates.
Sherry Phillips has been employed at the Art Gallery of Ontario since 1989, working as Conservator of Contemporary Art since 1996. Following an Honours BSc in microbiology and zoology from the University of Toronto, Sherry studied art history and studio techniques before continuing her education at Queen’s University, Kingston in the Master of Art Conservation program. Although her original focus was the conservation of paintings, working with contemporary objects and installations over the years has cultivated a working knowledge of the unusual. Anything from modern materials to electronics, traditional art materials or living systems may require her intervention for conservation treatment or preservation.
12:00-1:30pm Lunch, Sin and Redemption
2pm - 5pm Interpretive Planning Session with John Summers, Museum Studies,
University of Toronto
Creating Exhibits That Engage: A Very Short Introduction
Creating Exhibits That Engage: A Very Short Introduction
In this presentation, we will explore both the ends of museum exhibits and their means. Situating the creation of exhibits in the context of visitor experience design, we will touch on the power of the museum and its exhibits to both reinforce and interrogate dominant cultural narratives. With this in mind, we will consider the means by which exhibits can accomplish this, including the development of the big idea, the work of curating, interpretive planning methodologies, design strategies and museum writing. Along the way, we will consider how these might be applied to advance the specific goals of the Gatherings Project.
Presenter’s Biography
Drawing on more than three decades of work at cultural institutions in Canada and the United States, John Summers brings a wide variety of skills and perspectives to the planning and design of museum exhibits. His teaching and practice combine a curator’s attention to detail and authenticity with an educator’s sense of audience, a designer’s eye for color and layout, a fabricator’s knowledge of tools and materials and a manager’s ability to build and lead collaborative teams and keep on top of budgets and schedules. He is currently Manager of Heritage Services and Curator for the Regional Municipality of Halton, Ontario, Canada, where he leads, develops, designs and fabricates exhibit projects. He has taught students about museology, material culture studies, museums and technology and exhibition design and planning for the Ontario Museum Association, the Fleming College Museum Management and Curatorship Program, the University of Victoria’s Cultural Resource Management Program and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information, where he is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Museum Studies Program. Since 2013 he has been Course Director for Exhibit Planning & Design, one of nine courses in the Ontario Museum Association’s Certificate in Museum Studies Program. https://www.johnsummers.ca/
5:00pm Group Dinner, Valens. http://www.valens.ca
19 Baldwin St.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14
Location: Stephen’s House
50 Wolfrey Ave.
10am - 12pm Closing Reflections and Breakfast (catered)
END OF SYMPOSIUM Considering Curation Symposium August 12-14, 2019 PROGRAM p. 8
Archival & Oral Histories of Performance
SYMPOSIUM ORGANIZERS
Seika Boye
Kelsey Jacobson
Jenny Salisbury
VENUE SPONSORS
Art Museum, University of Toronto
Art Gallery of Ontario
*With thanks to Barbara Fischer (Art Museum), Maureen Smith (Art Museum) and Johnson Ngo (Art Gallery of Ontario) for their support of Considering Curation.
PARTNERS
Amy Bowring – Dance Collection Danse
Annie Gibson – Playwrights Canada Press
Michael Wallace – Theatre Museum Canada
CO-INVESTIGATORS
Stephen Johnson – Principal Investigator, University of Toronto
Allana Lindgren, University of Victoria
Sasha Kovacs, University of Victoria
Mark Turner, Memorial University
Justin Blum, University of Lethbridge
Gabrielle Houle, University of Lethbridge
Heather Fitzsimmons-Frey, MacEwan University
Jill Carter, University of Toronto
Seika Boye, University of Toronto
Martin Julien, University of Toronto
Jenn Cole, Trent University
Kelsey Jacobson, Queen’s University
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS
Lisa Aikman – Project Management
Matt Jones – Oral Histories Management
LIST OF RESEARCH ASSISTANTS FOR TORONTO SYMPOSIUM
Anna Paily
Elif Isikozlu
Marjan Moosavi
Jessica Watkin
Jessica Thorpe
Maria Meindl