
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.


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.

Artists
Sara Cwynar
Hannah Doerksen
Deborah Edmeades
Faye HeavyShield
Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok
View More Exhibitions

exhibition
September 21.2023 / December 30.2023
This group exhibition that explores various rituals related to the everyday and the natural environment through art by those who hold cultural ties to the Caribbean.

exhibition
September 14.2023 / December 17.2023
Seeing the Land, Feeling the Sea presents landscapes by Canadian artist Takao Tanabe from AGG’s permanent collection.

exhibition
September 14.2023 / December 17.2023
This exhibition of works by Manitoulin Island-based artist Carl Beam probes the interstices of history, politics, science, materiality, and Indigeneity.

exhibition
September 14.2023 / December 17.2023
The Third Scenario examines the act of art making through hyphenated conditions and what it means to create while being Asian and living in Canada.

exhibition
July 14.2023 / September 3.2023
This exhibition highlights Grande’s distinct visual lexicon culled from her experiences as well as cultural sources – symbolic references that coalesce in surreal, painterly compositions.

exhibition
May 25.2023 / September 10.2023
Incorporating elements of local lore as well as the evolving built landscape, Norlen’s large-scale drawings explore the effects of time and the play of memory and imagination that results.

exhibition
May 19.2023 / September 3.2023
The constructions of José Luis Torres evoke the prolonged ambiguity and estrangement inherent in experiences of immigration and exile.

exhibition
May 19.2023 / July 9.2023
Chelsea Ryan combines diaristic practices with digital technologies to record the still, transient, and enduring moments she notices of everyday life.