(Re)Imagining Relationality: Brad Isaacs and The Map of the Empire

The exhibition, The Map of the Empire (30 March – 6 May, 2016), featured photography, video, and installation works by Toronto-based artist, Brad Isaacs (Mohawk | mixed heritage). The majority of the artworks within the exhibition were produced from the Canadian Museum of Nature’s research and collections facility (Gatineau, Québec). The Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN), is the national natural history museum of (what is now called) Canada, with its galleries located in Ottawa, Ontario. The exhibition was the first to open at the Centre for Indigenous Research Creation at Queen’s University under the supervision of Dr. Dylan Robinson. Through the installment of The Map of the Empire, Isaacs effectively claimed space on campus grounds – within the geopolitical space of Katarokwi | Kingston – and pushed back against settler colonial imaginings of natural history. The Map of the Empire explored the capacity of Brad’s artistic practice in challenging the general belief under which natural history museums operate: that the experience of collecting/witnessing/interacting with a deceased and curated more-than-human animal will increase conservation awareness and facilitate human care towards nature. The exhibition also featured original poetry by Cecily Nicholson, author of Triage (2011) and From the Poplars (2014), as a response to Brad’s artwork. I locate the work of The Map of the Empire within the broader context of curatorship as a political practice engaging with conceptual and actualized forms of slow violence, both inside of and beyond the museum space. By unmapping the structures of slow, showcased and archived violence within the natural history museum, we can begin to radically transform and reimagine our connections with more-than-humans and encourage these relations to be reciprocal rather than hyper-curated or preserved.

Finding Common Ground: A Critical Review of Land Use and Resource Management Policies in Ontario, Canada and their Intersection with First Nations

This article provides an in-depth analysis of selective land use and resource management policies in the Province of Ontario, Canada. It examines their relative capacity to recognize the rights of First Nations and Aboriginal peoples and their treaty rights, as well as their embodiment of past Crown–First Nations relationships. An analytical framework was developed to evaluate the manifest and latent content of 337 provincial texts, including 32 provincial acts, 269 regulatory documents, 16 policy statements, and 5 provincial plans. This comprehensive document analysis classified and assessed how current provincial policies address First Nation issues and identified common trends and areas of improvement. The authors conclude that there is an immediate need for guidance on how provincial authorities can improve policy to make relationship-building a priority to enhance and sustain relationships between First Nations and other jurisdictions.