From the Museum to the Studio: Rethinking Visual Representations of White-Washed Stories of North American History

Abstract

Treating visual representations as a socio-legal text that offers entry points to critical debates about colonial legacies, experiences, and resistance, this article explores how visual and representational culture both shape and have the potential to destabilize the legal regime of colonialism. Drawing on display practices undertaken by Ontario’s largest community museum, The Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum, as well as the individual practices of Cree visual artist, Kent Monkman, this article is driven by the following question: How can visual representations be used to reveal, speak back to, and unsettle colonialism as a legal cultural order?