Uploaded March 2022 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
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Gerald McMaster is a 2022 winner of the Outstanding Contribution Award for the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Lucius Dechausay .
A presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: en.ggarts.ca
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Transcript:
When I first started as a curator, I didn’t know what I was getting into, for sure. I really saw few people around the Art Gallery of Ontario or any number of so-called public institutions that we see today. There were no Indigenous curators at all, so I was not the first one, but the only one.
And so, to think about others, to talk with others, to exchange ideas was really shouting into a hollow sphere with no feedback loop.
We can visualize the world from different perspectives, and there’s different ways of presenting works into these exhibition spaces.
I think the biggest part of my work has been to introduce more Indigenous art into the collection. And instead of presenting it in an art historical way by particular movements through time, what we did was to thematize exhibitions and, by doing that, it allowed us to juxtapose various artists, both women, Indigenous and male Canadian artists together and present them in a way that had never been done before.
What we wanted to say was that there are different ways of seeing the same thing. So by bringing these new ways of seeing—an Indigenous example of seeing the landscape—was really expanding our view of what Canadian art could be.
Historically, institutions have taken that authority away from Indigenous peoples, but now investing back in Indigenous curators and Indigenous folks… this question of authority. And I think that’s a very, very powerful example of the responsibility of young curators.
Seeing this growth of young people coming up today has been… I’m proud of that. That knowledge base is there for them to take hold of and to do something themselves.
For the first many years of my life, I didn’t quite have that.
Connect with us on social media:
Canada Council for the Arts
Instagram - instagram.com/canada.council
Facebook - facebook.com/canadacouncil
Twitter - twitter.com/CanadaCouncil
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/canada-council-for-the-arts
Website - canadacouncil.ca
Art Bank
Instagram - instagram.com/artbank_banquedart
Facebook - facebook.com/CCartbank
YouTube - youtube.com/watch?v=x9fGIx7hZYk
Website - artbank.ca
CCUNESCO - Canadian Commission for UNESCO
Instagram - instagram.com/ccunesco
Twitter - twitter.com/CCUNESCO
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/canadian-commission-for-unesco
Website - en.ccunesco.ca
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Gerald McMaster is a 2022 winner of the Outstanding Contribution Award for the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Lucius Dechausay .
A presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: en.ggarts.ca
****
Transcript:
When I first started as a curator, I didn’t know what I was getting into, for sure. I really saw few people around the Art Gallery of Ontario or any number of so-called public institutions that we see today. There were no Indigenous curators at all, so I was not the first one, but the only one.
And so, to think about others, to talk with others, to exchange ideas was really shouting into a hollow sphere with no feedback loop.
We can visualize the world from different perspectives, and there’s different ways of presenting works into these exhibition spaces.
I think the biggest part of my work has been to introduce more Indigenous art into the collection. And instead of presenting it in an art historical way by particular movements through time, what we did was to thematize exhibitions and, by doing that, it allowed us to juxtapose various artists, both women, Indigenous and male Canadian artists together and present them in a way that had never been done before.
What we wanted to say was that there are different ways of seeing the same thing. So by bringing these new ways of seeing—an Indigenous example of seeing the landscape—was really expanding our view of what Canadian art could be.
Historically, institutions have taken that authority away from Indigenous peoples, but now investing back in Indigenous curators and Indigenous folks… this question of authority. And I think that’s a very, very powerful example of the responsibility of young curators.
Seeing this growth of young people coming up today has been… I’m proud of that. That knowledge base is there for them to take hold of and to do something themselves.
For the first many years of my life, I didn’t quite have that.
Connect with us on social media:
Canada Council for the Arts
Instagram - instagram.com/canada.council
Facebook - facebook.com/canadacouncil
Twitter - twitter.com/CanadaCouncil
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/canada-council-for-the-arts
Website - canadacouncil.ca
Art Bank
Instagram - instagram.com/artbank_banquedart
Facebook - facebook.com/CCartbank
YouTube - youtube.com/watch?v=x9fGIx7hZYk
Website - artbank.ca
CCUNESCO - Canadian Commission for UNESCO
Instagram - instagram.com/ccunesco
Twitter - twitter.com/CCUNESCO
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/canadian-commission-for-unesco
Website - en.ccunesco.ca
