Museum Openings: A Workshop
Museum Openings: Caring for Difficult Knowledge Within and Beyond the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
University of Winnipeg, Sept. 19-21, 2014
This invitational workshop coincided with the CMHR’s public opening and aimed to consider its impact on human rights discourse and contemporary museum and curatorial practice, its contribution to cultural heritage and public history debates, and its influence on both local communities and at the national and international levels. The workshop was also geared to address how thinking through the CMHR as a site of “difficult knowledge” may help generate new concepts and terms of engagement for learning from legacies of violence and suffering within and beyond the museum.
Highlights included a keynote lecture by Dr. Karyn Ball (University of Alberta) as well as presentations by CSRG members and visiting scholars from Australia and across North America. Other participants included curators from local galleries including Gallery 1C03, the University of Winnipeg Anthropology Museum, Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Centre, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery, as well as students from the MA Program in Cultural Studies and Research Assistants from Cultural Studies, Indigenous Studies, Human Rights and Global Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies. The workshop incorporated a special tour of the CMHR, and marked the official launch of a new research partnership between UW’s CSRG and Concordia University’s Centre for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the Aftermath of Violence (CEREV).
This workshop was funded by generous support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC); CEREV; The President’s Office; The Provost and Vice-President Academic and International; The Office of the Associate Vice-President, Research and Innovation; The Dean of Graduate Studies; The Chancellor’s Research Chair; The Faculty of Arts; The Global College; Marsha Hanen Global Ethics and Dialogue Program; The Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies; The MA Program in Cultural Studies; Gallery 1C03; The Winnipeg Art Gallery; and Mere Hotel.
