Ottawa, March 7, 2022
Dismantling Foundations to Build A Better Tomorrow
Below is a message from the CMA’s Board of Directors concerning this year’s conference theme.
Dear colleagues,
Join us for two historically important days of truth telling and learning as we actively build a better tomorrow together.
Since their creation, museums have been tied to the colonial project and its impulse to showcase the spoils of violence and subjugation.
Even as they served to extol the powerful of the day, museums were created to cement and disseminate colonial attitudes and values rooted in the suffering and exploitation of nations, communities, and people.
That was then, but so too, it is now.
Many museums are now questioning this paradigm and are looking critically at these legacies to become spaces less harmful for those living outside the colonial canon.
The language and the words used today to describe the role and place of museums in society is changing, but the way they continue to be applied in so many of these spaces, like coats of paint on the broken foundations of a colonial edifice, is not fundamentally changing the status quo.
This visits more violence and suffering on historically marginalized people and communities, and specifically does so on the many museum professionals from diverse, historically marginalized, and systemically excluded communities who struggle daily to bring about change in an environment that continues to be defined by white supremacy.
If we are to be true to a vision of a sector that actively advances justice, equity, inclusion and diversity, there is no option for us but to name the legacies of colonialism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and the other forms of oppression that continue to be showcased in too many of our institutions.
Foundations built on blood, suffering, and injustice cannot support places of peace, healing, and belonging. Those foundations must be dismantled, and they must be dismantled now to build a better tomorrow for all.
Join colleagues for two days of discussion and actionable advice to help you and your organization advance Truth and Reconciliation, act sustainably, build relationships with diverse communities, and develop new ways of thinking and doing.
On April 26 and 27, the Canadian Museums Association (CMA) will bring together professionals from museums, art galleries, cultural centres, science centres, aquariums, artist-run centres, zoos and historic sites, community representatives as well as academics for the 2022 CMA Annual Conference.
The 2022 CMA Annual Conference aims to amplify the principles of anti-oppression, anti-colonialism, and anti-racism.
Signed,
The Board of Directors of the Canadian Museums Association
Michael Wallace, president
Pailagi Pandya
Tracy Calogheros
Armando Perla
Dorota Blumczyǹska
Sophie Yamauchi
Sam Cronk
Sandra Zapata
J'net Ayayqwayaksheelth
Heather George
Dolf DeJong
Registration Now Open
As a means of breaking barriers, this year we have significantly reduced the cost of access to this year's national conference. To register now, please follow this link to our website and click the appropriate registration link.
We hope to see you with us and are looking forward to another year together.
Disponible en français.