Taqralik Partridge has departed from Toronto’s Artwork Gallery of Ontario (AGO), turning into the second Indigenous curator to exit the Canadian museum’s Indigenous and Canadian Artwork division inside two months. Partridge’s go away from AGO earlier this month rapidly succeeds the scrutinized departure of Wanda Nanibush, AGO’s inaugural curator of Canadian and Indigenous artwork, who quietly left the establishment in November, spurring hypothesis that she was below strain by the museum’s higher-ups over her pro-Palestine feedback.
In an electronic mail to Hyperallergic, AGO spokesperson Laura Quinn confirmed that Partridge “has chosen to resign from the AGO to give attention to her artwork observe” and that the museum alerted employees of the information in early January. Partridge has not but responded to Hyperallergic’s requests for remark.
An Inuk-Scottish multidisciplinary artist, author, and spoken-word poet, Partridge joined AGO’s curatorial crew in November 2022 as an affiliate curator specializing in Inuit Artwork after working two years because the director of the Nordic Lab at SAW Gallery. “My curiosity is in serving to Inuit have entry to our heritage in artwork areas and in creating alternatives for Inuit artists working as we speak,” Partridge instructed Inuit Art Quarterly on the time of her appointment, including that she was concerned with curating exhibitions “to create an environment that’s welcoming to Inuit, and due to this fact welcoming to everybody else.
Partridge performed a job within the museum’s acquisition of recent Inuit artworks at Artwork Toronto 2022, together with 4 works by Inuvialuk artist Kablusiak and a hand-beaded wall hanging by Nunavik-born Inuk artist Niap. She additionally led the launch of recent exhibition programming that concerned a solo show of Kinngait artist Ningiukulu Teevee that ran in the course of the first half of 2023.
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She additionally co-curated AGO’s 2018 exhibition Tunirrusiangit: Kenojuak Ashevak and Tim Pitsiulak, contributing tales about Inuit experiences and tradition to the present. Her personal work, “Nunami” (2022) — a hand-beaded amautik (coat) created along with her youngsters Isaac and Akinasi — is at present on show within the ongoing exhibition Our Land, Our Art ᓄᓇᑦᑎᓂ ᑕᑯᒥᓇᕐᑐᖁᑎᕗᑦ on the Canadian Museum of Nature.
“Taqralik Partridge’s curatorial work supporting the care, acquisition, analysis, interpretation, and exhibition of Inuit artwork of all intervals has been invaluable to the AGO,” AGO Director and CEO Stephan Jost mentioned in a press release shared with Hyperallergic.
Partridge’s departure follows Nanibush’s quiet exit final fall, which resulted in backlash from Indigenous group members and humanities employees. The curator’s resignation adopted a grievance about her on-line posts in assist of Palestine despatched by the pro-Israel group Israel Museum and Arts, Canada (IMAAC) to AGO management, which was anonymously leaked on social media. In response, an open letter from Jost said that the establishment is “taking the time to deeply overview and replicate” on its adherence to the Reality and Reconciliation Fee’s 2022 recommendations for decolonizing Canadian museum insurance policies and practices that perpetuate hurt towards Indigenous group members.
Most lately, the Indigenous Curatorial Collective, a Canadian nonprofit that works to offer assist for Indigenous curators, artists, writers, and lecturers, has launched an open letter marketing campaign requesting that the museum launch Nanibush “from any authorized obligations stopping her from talking publicly about her tenure and dismissal, about how she sees what occurred and why.”