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The Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) has launched a limited-series podcast, “Uncontainable Collections: Speculative Futures of Objects,” which explores the future of museum collections and contemporary art.
Museums often have entrenched protocols. In the contemporary art field, some artists, curators and cultural workers across the world are embracing self-reflection. They are challenging long-standing approaches to move forward with practices that question accepted histories, invite diverse critical perspectives, and re-consider what equity, access, inclusion and engagement can look like now and the future.
The AGYU podcast takes part in those conversations by exploring the diverse ways communities are envisioning the futures of museum collections, and Indigenous-, African-, Afro-American-, and Adivasi- Futurisms.
The series is hosted by Professor Zulfikar Hirji, an anthropologist and social historian, AGYU Curator of Collections and Contemporary Art Engagement Lillian O’Brien Davis, and AGYU Assistant Curator Clara Halpern and will include discussions with guests that look to bring new perspectives to artistic and curatorial practices as they relate to the future of public museum collections.
Among the subjects discussed will be: Afro- and African American futurist approaches to colonial archives from the point of view of a liberated future; how museum collections can create space for untold stories, for example through the recontextualization of objects through new research; and ways the lenses of curatorial and artistic practices can be reoriented towards Indigenous perspectives.
Episodes are available at the AGYU website or follow and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.