The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has appointed its first Curator of Indigenous Arts, a move the venerable institution’s Chief Curator says demonstrates its “very firm commitment to Indigenous art and artists.”
Léuli Eshrāghi is an Indigenous Sāmoan artist, curator and researcher who has worked for the last few years in Australia, has undertaken Indigenous artist residencies and has curated shows around the world. They hold a postdoctoral fellowship from Montreal’s Concordia University, a PhD in Curatorial Practice from Monash University in Melbourne, and a Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Arts Management from the University of Melbourne.
Eshrāghi says that, because of its vibrant Indigenous artistic community as well as its multilingual heritage, Canada — and Montreal in particular — is well placed to highlight the complexity and nuances of Indigenous art.
“The cultural mix and all of the many influences that culminate in Montreal mean that we are in a very strong position,” they said in an interview. “A big part of my PhD was looking at Indigenous curatorial practice in Canada as exemplary, from the Yukon, to Ottawa, to Montreal, to Vancouver. There's a criticality that is leading in North America.”
Montreal’s French identity was also a big draw for Eshrāghi, who calls themself a “language geek” and is fluent in French. They also recognized a language divide not unlike what they know from their own home archipelagos of Oceania, where English, French or Spanish (and previously German and Dutch) were spoken depending on which former European power had colonized each island group.
Eshrāghi said both their grandmothers – Persian on their father’s side and Sāmoan on their mother’s – were artists, and Eshrāghi’s alternative-minded parents sought to break from intergenerational trauma. Eshrāghi was encouraged from a young age to engage their artistic side.
Léuli Eshrāghi, Curator of Indigenous Arts, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Photo Rhett Hammerton
In addition to their fellowship at Concordia, Eshrāghi’s Canadian connections include curatorial projects at the Vancouver Art Gallery, MacKenzie Art Gallery, and A Space Gallery, artist residencies at the Banff Centre and University of British Columbia, and exhibitions of their work at the Université de Montréal, Open Space and Diagonale/Momenta Biennale, among others. They also served two terms on the board of the Indigenous Curatorial Collective, a Canadian non-profit that supports Indigenous artists, curators and researchers.
The creation of the Curator of Indigenous Arts role was made possible with support from Scotiabank and Jarislowsky Fraser, which committed $1 million over three years to the museum. In addition to establishing the curatorial role, the agreement will help create an internship program for Indigenous students in arts-related fields of study.
“At Scotiabank, we believe the work of Indigenous artists is vital in increasing our understanding of the history and culture of the lands we live on today,” says Geneviève Brouillard, Senior Vice-President, Quebec and Eastern Ontario at Scotiabank. “We are proud to support the elevation of Indigenous artists from across Canada and around the world at the MMFA. Congratulations to Léuli, we look forward to seeing their work come to life."
Eshrāghi says the issues driving contemporary Indigenous artists, whether in Australia, Canada or elsewhere, are to some extent about identity, but they go well beyond that.
“It can be a commentary on climate change, or it's about matriarchy and continuing or reviving those kinds of kinship structures. Or it's a very specific weave that's tied to a reed that's tied to a river that's healing, these kinds of things that I think are really specific and beautiful,” they said.
“That's what I'm trying to say about complexity and nuance.”
Eshrāghi said that during a visit to Montreal last year, several members of Indigenous communities suggested Eshrāghi apply for the role at the museum.
“For me, that is a kind of invitation to come here and to contribute.”
Mary Dailey Desmarais, the Chief Curator at the MMFA, said hiring Eshrāghi was the natural next step for an institution that already took very seriously its role in nurturing Indigenous art and artists.
“Putting forward Indigenous voices and developing the collection of Indigenous art are priorities for the institution. It was therefore critical for us to seek out a full-time curator who could be dedicated to those tasks and to shaping our programming in Indigenous arts,” Desmarais said.
Desmarais agrees with Eshrāghi on the vibrancy of the Indigenous art scene.
What we all want is to support artists to realize their dreams and to continue to engage with collections and exhibitions in really imaginative and innovative ways.”
“Some of the most exciting work in contemporary art is being made by Indigenous artists,” she said. “I'm so happy to see so many artists here in Quebec, and in Canada more broadly, who are starting to get significant recognition and beginning to have a strong impact on the global contemporary art scene.”
The fact Eshrāghi is fluent in French was an important consideration for the museum. Desmarais said there has been a certain marginalization of Francophone Indigenous artists.
“It was very important to us as that the person who came into this position could speak the language of those artists,” she said.
Founded in 1860 as the Arts Association of Montreal, the MMFA is the oldest art museum in Canada and a leading North American art institution. It now comprises five interconnected pavilions with “more then 45,000 paintings, sculptures, graphic art works, photographs, multimedia installations and decorative art objects dating from antiquity to the present,” according to the museum website.
Though it began at a time when Canada was still a colony of Great Britain and was not immune to the colonialist impulses such institutions had at the time, the MMFA has evolved tremendously since then. Hiring Eshrāghi is part of that continued evolution.
“You can't undo the past, but what you can do is acknowledge it, open it up to questions, open it up to counter-narratives and open it up to a plurality of voices and points of view,” Desmarais said.
“Together we are doing this work and Léuli’s presence on our team will help us to address critical questions about the Museum’s past and present with rigour, nuance, and creativity.”
Eshrāghi said their priorities, in addition to the Indigenous internship program, are to focus on amplifying the presence of Indigenous artists from the wider woodlands, lakes and rivers regions surrounding Montreal, to publish more writing on Indigenous artists in the collection, as well as platforming Indigenous arts more prominently in the physical and digital experience of the museum.
“What we all want is to support artists to realize their dreams and to continue to engage with collections and exhibitions in really imaginative and innovative ways,” they said.
“Mainly it's about the people that come through the door, the people who work behind the scenes, about making everyone feel welcome. It's all about the hospitality and the relationships.”
