Eighteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper considers decolonizing guided walks of public monuments and heritage sites that are created by artists to reveal, question, and reformulate colonial historical narratives. I will focus specifically on walks by Indigenous and Black contemporary artists in Canada - Émilie Monnet, Camille Larivée, and Camille Turner. The artists provide social contexts for participants to enter into dialogue with historical narratives, the dynamics of place, and one another - as they listen to the artists’ ancestral stories and languages that were previously silenced through systematic erasure. I review the artists’ various approaches for encouraging dialogue and participation. I also indicate their strategies for innovating the typical walking tour format to reclaim their historical narratives, to encourage reflection, and to enable affective and somatic interpretations through experiential learning. While each artist integrates walking as a pedagogical force, their walks include distinct mediums such as performance, storytelling, mapping, sound art, oral history, and street art. Critical to these interventions, the artists intend to reinforce their presence, in both the present and the past, as well as to honour their ancestors by amplifying their voices. I frame these guided walks as initiatives to ‘re-story’ collective memory, a concept inspired by Potawatomi botanist, Robin Kimmerer, that is both generative and hopeful in its meaning. The study includes audio excerpts from interviews with the artists, as well as audio-visual content to illustrate aspects of the highlighted walks, including performance documentation, sound excerpts, and images of street art.