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Social Science Indigenous Studies

Aesthetics of Repair

Indigenous Art and the Form of Reconciliation

by (author) Eugenia Kisin

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Jul 2024
Category
Indigenous Studies, Native American Studies, Cultural, Canadian
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781487503420
    Publish Date
    Jul 2024
    List Price
    $80.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781487522667
    Publish Date
    Jul 2024
    List Price
    $26.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487517915
    Publish Date
    Jul 2024
    List Price
    $26.95

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Description

Aesthetics of Repair analyses how the belongings called “art” are mobilized by Indigenous artists and cultural activists in British Columbia, Canada. Drawing on contemporary imaginaries of repair, the book asks how diverse forms of collective reckoning with settler-colonial harm resonate with urgent conversations about aesthetics of care in art. The discussion moves across urban and remote spaces of display for Northwest Coast–style Indigenous art, including galleries and museums, pipeline protests, digital exhibitions, an Indigenous-run art school, and a totem pole repatriation site.

 

The book focuses on the practices around art and artworks as forms of critical Indigenous philosophy, arguing that art’s efficacies in this moment draw on Indigenous protocols for enacting justice between persons, things, and territories. Featuring examples of belongings that embody these social relations – a bentwood box made to house material memories, a totem pole whose return replenishes fish stocks, and a copper broken on the steps of the federal capital – each chapter shows how art is made to matter. Ultimately, Aesthetics of Repair illuminates the collision of contemporary art with extractive economies and contested practices of “resetting” settler-Indigenous relations.

About the author

Eugenia Kisin is an associate professor of art and society at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.

Eugenia Kisin's profile page