At the Terminus: Ethnographic Terminalia 2019

This year’s constellation of events will take place between November 19-24, alongside the 2019 American Anthropology Meetings at The Hangar at the Centre for Digital Media, at the heart of East Vancouver’s growing arts district.

2019 marks our tenth and final year working as a curatorial collective! It’s been a privilege and an adventure working with Kate Hennessy, Stephanie Takaragawa, Fiona P. McDonald and Craig Campbell for the past decade: An adventure that includes experiments in making art and anthropology; challenging disciplinary boundaries; excessive hammering of holes into gallery walls (that’s just me); and bringing diverse publics together into a range of places (galleries, sidewalks, museums, bookstores, conference rooms…). I’ve learned a lot, and feel a lot of gratitude for all the artists, anthropologists, local communities, guest curators, and my co-curators for making the past 10 years lively and generative and possible.

A still image showing a beehive inspection. Two hands hold a rectangular hive with bees in the air. A cloudy sky and rooftop location.
Video still “Hive inspection #3 GoPro June 22 2019”

This year we’ll feature a special presentation of sq̓əq̓ip – gathered together  [4-channel audio installation, 25 mins] featuring the voices of Howard E. Grant, Howard J. Grant, Larry Grant, Wendy Grant-John, Johnny Louis, and Mary Roberts.

sq̓əq̓ip – gathered together was created by the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia with the Musqueam Indian Band for the exhibition c̓əsnaʔəm: the city before the city (2015-2016). It was co-curated by Jordan Wilson and Susan Rowley in collaboration with the curatorial team of c̓əsnaʔəm, the city before the city, an historic partnership of three Vancouver institutions: the Musqueam Indian Band, the Museum of Vancouver, and the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia.

Events also include Wakanda University and the Cyborg Sandbox, presented by Elizabeth Chin and Danya Glabau. Wakanda University at the AAA is an ethno-future space beyond whiteness that challenges anthropology from the ground up. It is a project run by the Laboratory of Speculative Ethnology, curated by Elizabeth Chin and Danya Glabau. Wakanda first appeared in 2018, in the exhibition hall at the San Jose AAA meetings.

And we’ll co-present Bee Roll, a media installation (co-presented by the Ethnographic Terminalia Collective and the Centre for Digital Media).

Here is an excerpt about our project from our website (that also includes a full lineup of events):

Vancouver, B.C. is known as Terminal City, the end of the railways and pipelines where land meets the Pacific Ocean. It is the terminus, the boundary, the border. It is a city on unceded xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Territory, a place grappling with colonial ruptures, cultural continuities, and new beginnings.

In 2009, the Ethnographic Terminalia Collective presented its first exhibition in the IceBox Gallery at Crane Arts, Philadelphia, alongside the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Since then, the collective has curated and exhibited the work of over 150 artists and anthropologists in a range of projects, from group exhibitions, to site specific collaborations, workshops, and alternative modes of publishing. On the 10th anniversary of Ethnographic Terminalia, the Vancouver gathering marks their final official event as a collective.

This exhibition is a presentation of works and events that wrestle with entangled pasts, presents, and futures, the personal and the institutional, the relational, and the networked.

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