![A photo that shows four small chess-like pieces that have carved human faces on them.](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/mycuriositiesarenotyourcurios-header.jpg)
My curiosities are not your curios
Yasmin Nurming-Por
Awarded the 5th annual Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators, Yasmin Nurming-Por’s exhibition My curiosities are not your curios examines the idea of collections and their institutional and colonial histories through the work of contemporary artists for whom the act of collecting is both a creative and critical practice. Within the wider context of Canada’s sesquicentennial and re-examinations of accepted narratives of nationhood, the exhibition raises important questions about how such knowledge is established as well as how artistic practice can produce vital new insight and imagination.
Bringing together cross-generational artists – Sara Cwynar (New York, NY); Hannah Doerksen (Calgary, AB); Deborah Edmeades (New York, NY/ Vancouver, BC); Faye HeavyShield (Blood Reserve, Alberta); and Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok (d. 2012, Arviat, Nunavut) – each offers a contemporary perspective on the traditional “cabinet of curiosities,” complicating historical approaches to the use and display of objects. With collections that activate history, culture, and the land itself in their explorations of the politics of display, the artists highlight how these systems – and “curiosities” themselves – can also be powerful sources of alternative narratives. At once deeply personal and inherently political, the exhibition draws attention to collecting as a method of making, proposing strategies to destabilize and create new forms of knowledge.
![](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Middlebrook_Social_Innovation_Logo-300x123-1.png)
![](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/download.jpg)
Presented by the Art Gallery of Guelph, the Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators is made possible through the support of the Centre Wellington Community Foundation’s Middlebrook Social Innovation Fund, The Guelph Community Foundation: Musagetes Fund, and through private donations.
About the curator
Yasmin Nurming-Por
Based in Banff, Alberta, she holds a B.A. Honours in Art History from the University of British Columbia (2011) and a M.A. in Art History from the University of Toronto (2013). Her recent curatorial projects include: ARCTICNOISE (2015-2016), At Sea (2015), and Blind White (2015) and her writing has appeared in Drain Magazine, C Magazine, Inuit Art Quarterly, esse, and thisistomorrow. Nurming-Por is currently engaged in the Curatorial Research Practicum at the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
![A headshot of Yasmin Yasmin Nurming-Por, who has blonde hair and wears brown glasses.](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Yasmin-Headshot-square-scaled.jpg)
Artists
Sara Cwynar
Hannah Doerksen
Deborah Edmeades
Faye HeavyShield
Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok
View More Exhibitions
![a black and white photo of a woman applying lip liner with a compact mirror](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/dyrl-web-header-300x169.png)
exhibition
September 12.2024 / December 15.2024
Juxtaposing Susan Mogul’s 1997 video with a collection of quillboxes, this exhibition unifies both forms of expression through themes of women’s identity, family, relationships, and the quest for home.
![a collage showing a coniferous tree in a hilly landscape, with an outline of an airplane in the blue sky, a red drawing of a tree attached to the tree trunk, and a framed painting of a farm in a valley in the bottom left corner](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/nadeau-1x-300x169.jpg)
exhibition
Paul Nadeau
July 18.2024 / August 25.2024
Paul Nadeau’s paintings explore Canadian eco-tourism and resource extraction that contributes to the settler-colonial view of Canadian wilderness.
![a painting in the Woodlands style of a flying loon decorated with geometric patterns, connected by wavy black lines to an orange circle](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Untitled-design-7-min-300x169.png)
exhibition
Richard Bedwash
June 8.2024 / August 25.2024
Explore the vivid, symbol-rich images of Anishinaabe artist Richard Bedwash that connects his work, his life, and the cultural landscapes of Guelph.
![layered smoothed rocks in earthy tones, some of which have a single gold line painted on it](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Untitled-design-47-Copy-300x169.jpg)
exhibition
May 30.2024 / July 10.2024
The work of Catherine Chan delves into human entanglements with the more-than-human using rocks and other materials of geology to explore the intersection of deep time with more fleeting experiences.
![children's toys and clothes arranged in a horizontal line along the ground in the desert](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/what-remains-1x-300x169.png)
exhibition
May 2.2024 / August 30.2024
What Remains provides windows, peering into and out from an ongoing global humanitarian crisis, assembled into a multimedia and multidisciplinary experience.
![](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Kinngait-5MB-1-300x169.jpg)
exhibition
Tim Pitsiulak
January 18.2024 / May 19.2024
Tim Pitsiulak’s work offers profound insight into not just life in the North, but the ever-evolving impacts of colonization, particularly the effects of climate change and environmental exploitation.
![an embroidered rainbow and gold stars on a blue fabric background](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/JD-Pluecker_The-Unsettlements_for-web-1-300x169.jpg)
exhibition
January 18.2024 / April 21.2024
The Unsettlements is a series of projects initiated by JD Pluecker in 2018 that delve into sites of memory, silence, and ancestry, particularly in Houston and across what is now called Texas
![an abstract landscape consisting of soft blurred streaks of blue, yellow, orange, and brown](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/McKay-Odyssey-to-a-Mallard-Drake-2-300x169.jpg)
exhibition
December 23.2023 / April 21.2024
Drawing from the Art Gallery of Guelph’s permanent collection, this exhibition explores the use of abstraction by artists in their depictions of the natural world.