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Listenings is published in response to and alongside Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts, a travelling exhibition that asked,

How can a score be a call and tool for decolonization?

Artists responded to this question through commissioned works that ranged from performance and video to sculpture, bead work, sound installation, written instructions and re-presentations of cultural belongings held in museum collections. Unfolding in a sequence of five parts, these “scores” were activated at specific moments by musicians, dancers, performers and members of the public, gradually filling the gallery and surrounding public spaces with sound and action. Curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson, Soundings was cumulative, limning an ever-changing community of artists, players, artworks, shared experience and engagement as it travelled from one venue to the next over the course of three years and beyond. Some artworks had multiple parts; others changed to their own rhythm as the exhibition grew.

Listenings features writing and responses to the artists represented in the many iterations of Soundings: Raven Chacon, Sebastian De Line, Camille Georgeson-Usher, Garry Gottfriedson, Maggie Groat, Kite, Germaine Koh, Aaron Leon, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Logan MacDonald, Cristóbal Martínez, Chandra Melting Tallow, Peter Morin, Ogimaa Mikana, Diamond Point, Lisa C. Ravensbergen, Taylor Jordan Riner, Heidi Senungetuk, Greg Staats, Olivia Whetung and Tania Willard.

Writing and responses are offered by Xenia Benivolski, Lorna Brown, Whess Harman, Ashley Hynd, Roshanak Kheshti, Vanessa Kwan, Logan MacDonald, Cecily Nicholson, Patrick Nickleson, Beth Piatote, Erin Sutherland and Jordan Wilson.

Contributors

1. Candice Hopkins

   is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation and lives in Red Hook, New York. Her writing and curatorial practice explores the intersections of history, contemporary art and indigeneity. She worked as senior curator for the 2019 and 2022 editions of the Toronto Biennial of Art and was part of the curatorial team for the Canadian Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale, featuring the work of the media art collective Isuma. She is co-curator of notable exhibitions including Indian Theater: Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969; Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts (with Dylan Robinson); Art for New Understanding: Native Voices 1950s to Now; the 2018 SITE Santa Fe biennial, Casa Tomada; documenta 14 in Athens, Greece, and Kassel, Germany; Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada; and Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is currently the executive director and chief curator at Forge Project.

2. Dylan Robinson

   is a xwélmexw (Stó:lō/Skwah) artist, curator and writer, and associate professor at the School of Music, University of British Columbia. From 2015 to 2022, he was the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts at Queen’s University. His current research project, xoxelhmetset te syewa:l, Caring for Our Ancestors, involves working with Indigenous artists to reconnect kinship with Indigenous life incarcerated in museums. As co‑chair of the Indigenous Advisory Council for the Canadian Music Centre, he is currently leading a process for the reparation and redress of music that appropriates Indigenous song and misrepresents Indigenous culture. Robinson’s previous publications include Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies (University of Minnesota Press, 2020), the edited volumes Music and Modernity among First Peoples of North America (Wesleyan University Press, 2018); Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016) and Opera Indigene: re/presenting First Nations and Indigenous Cultures (Ashgate, 2011).

Co-published with the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Independent Curators International (ICI), and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.

1. Listenings
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   Listenings is published in response to and alongside Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts, a travelling exhibition curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson and organized by Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen’s University and Independent Curators International.

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