![two side-by-side headshot photos of curators heather ahtone and Ryan Rice, both smiling with gray hair and the Cross-Border Dialogues logo below them](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Untitled-design-26-small-min.png)
Cross-Border Dialogues: Ryan Rice and heather ahtone @ AGG Online
Cross-Border Dialogues is a series of conversations with change-leading individuals working in the cultural sector within Canada and the United States who have raised the level of discourse around institutional critique and accountability, responding to the obligations that arts organizations have as localized public institutions in a global context. Addressing a range of topics including the philosophies that inform their work, their methods for engagement, and the role of pedagogy and community outreach in their respective practices, the conversations support transparency and education through the exchange of thoughts, ideas, and experiences.
This conversation in the series, which is organized and moderated by former AGG curator Sally Frater, takes place on Thursday, February 29, at 6:30 pm, featuring heather ahtone, PhD (Choctaw/Chickasaw Nation. Director, Curatorial Affairs, First Americans Museum, Oklahoma City) and Ryan Rice (Executive Director and Curator of Indigenous Art, Onsite Gallery at OCAD, Toronto). The discussion invites ahtone and Rice to touch on the considerations and intersections of programming, mentorship, and community and how they inform their approaches to curatorial practice.
![](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/1280px-Canada_Council_for_the_Arts_logo.svg-1.png)
![](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/guelph-community-foundation-logo.png)
Presented with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and Guelph Community Foundation Community Fund.
About the panelists
Ryan Rice
Ryan Rice, Kanien’kehá:ka of Kahnawake, is a curator, critic and creative consultant based in Toronto. His institutional and independent curatorial career spans 30 years in community, museums, artist run centres, public spaces and galleries. Rice focuses his extensive curatorial research and writing on contemporary and Onkwehón:we art. In 2023, he co-curated the 2023 Bonavista Biennale (Newfoundland) and he was appointed to OCAD University’s Onsite Gallery as the Executive Director alongside his Curator, Indigenous Art post. He consistently contributes to multiple communities to advance leadership and organizational experiences in the arts and culture sector.
![a headshot photo of curator Ryan Rice, a smiling man with gray hair, wearing a blue floral shirt and an orange neck scarf](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/RRiceBB23.jpeg)
heather ahtone
Dr. heather ahtone (Choctaw/Chickasaw Nation) is Director of Curatorial Affairs at First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Her research examines the intersection between Indigenous cultural knowledge, art and museum practice. Working in the Native arts community since 1993, she has curated numerous exhibits, publishes regularly, and continues to seek opportunities to broaden discourse on global contemporary Indigenous arts. In addition to serving the Native arts community, she is on the editorial board for American Art Journal, is on multiple boards, including the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center, Association of Art Museum Curators, and the Native American Art Studies Association.
![a headshot photo of curator heather ahtone, a woman wearing a gray t-shirt and colourful earrings, with light gray hair](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2023-ahtone-headshot-scaled.jpg)
About the moderator
Sally Frater
Sally Frater is the daughter of immigrants from the Caribbean. Curatorially she is interested in decolonial praxis, space and place, Black and Caribbean diasporas, photography, art of the everyday, and issues of equity and representation in museological spaces. She has curated solo and group exhibitions for institutions such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of Guelph, the Ulrich Museum of Art, Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto, Project Row Houses, and Centre[3] for Artistic and Social Practice. She is the senior curator/curatorial manager at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, SK.
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