The Practice of Critical Heritage: Curatorial Dreaming as Methodology

Abstract

In this article, I introduce the methodology of curatorial dreaming as a tool for exploring possibilities and limitations of critical heritage in Canada. Curatorial dreams are imagined exhibitions or interventions in museums, galleries, and heritage and vernacular sites. For our volume, Curatorial Dreams: Critics Imagine Exhibitions, my co-editor Erica Lehrer and I tasked scholars to propose exhibitions in response to their own critiques of museums and broader social landscapes. This article focuses on curatorial dreaming workshops that I have facilitated with curators, educators, activists, students, and scholars. I argue for the value of responding creatively, concretely, and constructively to problematic exhibitions and heritage products. My examples include an advertising campaign for Yum Yum Potato Chips in Quebec, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ representation of queer history and struggle, and the Women Are Persons monument that faces the Senate on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. In describing and analyzing curatorial dreaming in relation to these display sites, I compare realistic and impossible curatorial dreams and conclude by challenging mainstream, establishment museums and heritage sites to honour and acknowledge refusals and difficulties.