DIVERSE DISCOURSE LECTURE: CANDICE HOPKINS
Join us for the Spring 2020 Diverse Discourse Lecture with Candice Hopkins, independent curator and writer, and Senior Curator, Toronto Biennial of Art.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the content and format of the lecture has shifted. Instead of her originally planned lecture, Sounding the Margins: Towards Decolonial Listening, Hopkins will present, The Golden Potlatch and the Gilded Gaze: Capitalism, Infection, and Early Colonialism.
**This event will be presented live online via Zoom and Facebook Live. Registrants will receive access instructions and the Zoom link via email on Wednesday, April 1 prior tot he event start time. Those who wish to view via Facebook Live do NOT need to preregister through Eventbrite. The recorded lecture will also be made available on DiverseWorks’ website after the event.**
Given the present climate, this lecture will center on the relationships between Indigenous economies, extractive colonialism and its attendant metaphors of infection and sickness. Beginning in the 1800s with the Klondike Gold Rush, early forms of capitalism and resource extraction in my homelands of Yukon, Canada were commonly described as viral: “So infectious was the Klondike epidemic that that flimsiest rumor served to send hundreds dashing to the farthest corners of the northern hemisphere.” There remains a performative rhetoric of “sickness” associated with capitalist desire, one which enacts the symptoms of Western colonialism while simultaneously constituting a public acknowledgment of colonialism’s existence and its inherent violence. Through looking at the relative contingencies between Indigenous economies and wealth and colonial capitalism, this talk seeks to learn from this particular historical moment as a means to shed light on our own. — Candice Hopkins
The Potlatch Bug, flyer developed for The Seattle Golden Potlatch, July 15-20, 1912.
Candice Hopkins is a curator and writer of Tlingit descent originally from Whitehorse, Yukon. Her writing and curatorial practice explore the intersections of history, contemporary art, and indigeneity. She works as senior curator for the Toronto Biennial of Art and was a part of the curatorial team of the Canadian Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, featuring the work of the media art collective Isuma. She is co-curator of notable exhibitions including the 2018 SITE Santa Fe Biennial, Casa Tomada; documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany; Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art; Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years; and the 2014 SITElines biennial, Unsettled Landscapes. Her writing is published widely and recent essays and presentations include “The Gilded Gaze: Wealth and Economies on the Colonial Frontier,” for the documenta 14 Reader, “Outlawed Social Life” for South as a State of Mind, and Sounding the Margins: A Choir of Minor Voices at Small Projects, Tromsø, Norway. Hopkins has lectured internationally including at the Witte de With, Tate Modern, Dak’Art Biennale, Artists Space, Tate Britain, Yale University, Cornell University, and the University of British Columbia. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art and the 2016 Prix pour un essai critique sur l’art contemporain by the Foundation Prince Pierre de Monaco. Hopkins is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation.
Diverse Discourse brings national curators, artistic directors, and critics to Houston to present a free public lecture and conduct studio visits with Houston-area artists, performers, and writers. Diverse Discourse provides a significant opportunity for area artists in all disciplines to have their work reviewed by a variety of distinguished arts professionals, fostering a cultural exchange across the nation between artists and cultural producers. Most recently, Diverse Discourse lecturers were Shea Little, co-founder and Executive Director, Big Medium, Austin; Sonia Guiñansaca, Managing Director, CultureStrike; and Kemi Ilesanmi, Executive Director, Laundromat Project, New York.
NOTE: Houston-area artists are invited to apply for a studio visit with Candice Hopkins. The application deadline is Tuesday, March 10. Click here for online application & guidelines.