It’s the whole diversity revolution in a questionnaire. And it is extraordinary on the imagination of our era.
The memo addressed to all employees of the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) on April 14, 2022, signed by Angela J. Cassie, then Vice President of Strategic Transformation and Inclusion, asked to complete an “equity survey” at work as pandemic health measures were completed. The letter explained that “stereotypes and biases associated with gender, race, disability and age” can lead to “advantages for some and disadvantages for others”.
The duty obtained a copy of the questionnaire (in English) with a few thousand pages extensively redacted as part of an access to information request on the recent settlement crisis. The first question asks you to identify your gender: Male, Female, Two-Spirit, Nonbinary, Nonconforming, Fluid, or Other. The second relates to the employee’s sexual identity: heterosexual, gay or lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer, two-spirit, unspecified, and so on.
The next tip allows you to indicate the religion of the employee. Another still concerns his racial or ethnic community of belonging with no less than 18 choices of boxes, including three Asian categories; three for Blacks (African, Caribbean, Canadian); and two white divisions (Europe or Canada and the United States). The introductory word of Mme Cassie says some of the questions were borrowed from QuakeLab, an “Ottawa-based, Black-owned equity and justice consultancy”.
The legitimate approach seeking to understand who has been affected by the confinements and how to continue (tele)work remains nonetheless revealing of the JEDI turn (justice, equity, diversity and inclusion) which is now essential everywhere in this museum as in so many other establishments and cultural institutions in the country described as post-national by its prime minister. The ongoing mutation leaves its transformative traces everywhere, in the relationships woke to employees woke as in the presentation of the works.
“Museums have no choice but to change because society changes,” summarizes Yves Bergeron, professor of museology at UQAM. He explains that for this reason, in Europe, where the sector is one of the most structured in the world, museums must periodically produce a new scientific and cultural program to describe their responsibilities towards society, in terms of acquisitions or programming.
“In the past, these responsibilities were based on a cultural project,” explains the museologist. It wasn’t even to attract visitors. Institutions had to acquire and preserve heritage. It’s much more than that today. Museums must be concerned with climate change, social justice, diversity of audiences, demands for the return of works, etc. »
Everything changes
Sasha Suda, appointed director of the NGC in 2019, pushed through her own institutional program, the Strategic Plan 2021-2026, first of its kind for Canada’s largest museum. The plan to transform the museum proposes to decolonize and indigenize the collections, exhibitions and professional teams. The new trilingual watchword (Algonquin, English and French) announces: Ankose — Everything is connected — Everything is connected.
Everything can very quickly fall apart too. Mme Suda hired Mme Cassie then resigned in June 2022 to go on to run the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has tripled her salary to now over a million annually. About 40 staff (out of about 300) left their posts or were fired in the wake of the crisis, including four pillars of curatorial and management, including the Curator of Indigenous Arts and the Chief Curator. Mme Cassie, who was acting director, resigned in mid-June, when Jean-François Bélisle of the Musée d’art de Joliette was appointed as the new director of the NGC.
Before the interview at Duty, Professor Yves Bergeron reviewed the Strategic Plan. The specialist was struck by the fact that this roadmap could apply to any organization or cultural sector in Canada, a library as well as an audiovisual production house.
“It’s very generalist,” he said. At the same time, we read the text and we cannot be against its virtue. We end our reading by wondering above all if the mission of museums is still cultural. There is no question of culture in this fundamental document. »
This problem is widespread in the sector. Mr. Bergeron was in Japan for the meeting of the International Council of Museums (ICOM Kyoto 2019) which made the shift towards decolonization urbi et orbi. “It was no longer about collections or culture, but essentially about social justice, equity, climate change,” he says. Everyone agreed and it was not a plan for a sector supposed to preserve tangible and intangible heritage: it was a plan for society. »
Museums must be concerned with climate change, social justice, diversity of audiences, demands for the return of works, etc.
Everything must change
History and society museums took the diversionary turn many years ago and often without causing a stir. The McCord Stewart in Montreal has completely overhauled its relationship with First Nations (including on the board of directors) and its way of presenting their heritage. In addition, the art market has little impact on these establishments while wealthy collectors weigh heavily on the art museum where they dump their collections and acquire symbolic capital.
Museologist Michel V. Cheff worked as Director of Special Projects at the turn of the century at the Canadian Museum of History when that institution achieved partial decolonization and indigenization. “We created the First Peoples Hall with representatives from all nations across the country, with huge committees to listen to them,” he says. It’s part of the new sharing of authority in museums. Jean-François Bélisle will face this challenge at the NGC. »
Consulting also takes time and obviously, the changing NGC has gone far very quickly. For Mr. Cheff, the consultation must establish a dialogue. “The non-natives must listen to the natives and vice versa. When one reads the documents on decolonization, one has the impression that the discussion should only take place on one side. The two sides have to listen to each other to establish a real dialogue, whereas there, we have the impression of a reversal, that everything is autochtonized. The NGC’s Strategic Plan speaks only of this without an overarching vision. I don’t see where this is going to lead us. »
Janis Kahentóktha Monture, Executive Director and CEO of the Canadian Museums Association (CMA), is betting on more representation of society as it was, as it is, as it could become. “Museums have tried to respond to the lack of diversity by creating suitable positions, in conservation or elsewhere,” she says, broadening the perspective from the crisis and the recent transformations of the NGC. “We then noticed that the support and cultural understanding of these issues were not the same everywhere in the organizations. Discrimination and racism therefore remain a systemic problem to be considered. »
Mme Kahentóktha Monture has been active in the sector for twenty years. Originally from the Six Nations of the Grand River, she directed the Woodland Cultural Center in Ontario. His presence at the head of the AMC, like the presence of other indigenous people on the association’s board of directors, adds to the feeling that the sector is shifting into another paradigm. She cites as new guidelines for action the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the documents of her own association which go in the direction of the decolonization of the museum sector.
The general manager and CEO adds that the lack of diversity is also reflected in the programming, in what the teams, who are always too socio-ethnicly uniform, prepare. “There are efforts [qui ont été faits] and it will still be necessary to document this problem to better understand it. However, the way in which indigenous collections have been constituted in this country and their access by communities must also be addressed. Reconciliation in the museum sector will not be possible without. Many more changes will be needed to achieve the necessary transformations. »
She also mentions that many of the “human resources” in the sector are exhausted. The questionnaire cited at the beginning probably stemmed from a desire to take better care of employees by considering their diverse characteristics…