ABSTRACT
For close to two decades, Canada has seen an exponential increase in references to ‘reconciliation,’ vis-a-vis the Indigenous-Canada dynamic. In 2003, Charles Hauss wrote that in the last few years ‘reconciliation has become one of the “hottest topics” in the increasingly “hot” field of conflict resolution.’2 To be sure, one need only to conduct a simple Google search of scholarly works that feature ‘reconciliation’ and ‘Canada’ as principal keywords to see that there has been a sustained proliferation of new works focusing on reconciliation in the Canadian context. But how did we get here and, more importantly, what exactly are we doing here, for it is the doing that is essential. To these ends, Canadian artists and theorists are at the forefront of engaging with both the theory and, much more importantly, the practice of reconciliation. This is not to say that the arts offer the definitive answers; rather, artists are highlighting the complexities of asking how one practices reconciliation, since many, including T. A. Boer3 and David Gaertner,4 argue that reconciliation is difficult – if not impossible – to define. Gaertner and I, along with other colleagues, also problematized this notion in research we conducted for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; in Practicing Reconciliation – a collaborative study of Aboriginal art, resistance and cultural politics: A report commissioned by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools, we wrote:
The act of reconciliation is itself deeply complicated, and that success should not be measured by achieving a putative reconciliation but by movement toward these lofty goals. Indeed, it could be proposed that full reconciliation is both mercurial and impossible, and that the efforts of theorists, artists, survivors, and the various publics engaged in this difficult process are best focused on working collaboratively for better understanding of our histories, our traumas and ourselves.5
