The Artwork Gallery of Ontario (AGO), which continues to be going through blowback for the dismissal of its curator of Canadian and Indigenous artwork, Wanda Nanibush, final November, has misplaced one other curator of Indigenous artwork. Taqralik Partridge quietly left her position as affiliate curator of Indigenous artwork, specializing in Inuit artwork, in line with The Globe and Mail. Partridge’s departure leaves the AGO with no curators accountable for Indigenous artwork.
Partridge, an Inuk poet, artist and performer, beforehand labored because the director of the Nordic Lab, part of Ottawa’s artist-run SAW Centre. Her relationship with the AGO started in 2018 whereas curating the exhibition Tunirrusiangit: Kenojuak Ashevak and Tim Pitsiulak, and continued with a full-time position in 2022. Relating to her departure from the gallery, director Stephan Jost advised The Globe and Mail: “Taqralik Partridge’s curatorial work supporting the care, acquisition, analysis, interpretation and exhibition of Inuit artwork of all durations has been invaluable to the AGO. The AGO stays essentially and totally dedicated to our reconciliation journey and to exhibiting, buying and programming Indigenous artwork, voices and tales.”
Partridge’s departure comes amid ongoing scrutiny of the AGO following Nanibush’s ouster. Partridge advised The Globe and Mail that she was leaving her curatorial place so as “to give attention to her artwork apply”, however neither Nanibush nor the AGO offered reasoning for her departure. Within the aftermath of her exit, press protection and a string of open letters have prompt that Nanibush’s assist for the Palestinian trigger amidst the continued battle in Gaza could have led to her dismissal.
Nanibush just isn’t named within the assertion Jost issued concerning the episode, which says the AGO “is being requested to higher outline the rights and limits of political and creative expression in a regionally numerous however globally complicated atmosphere. We are going to undergo a course of to hear, to grasp a number of views, after which collectively we’ll articulate our institutional place.”
