What is a network?

This collaborative project introduces the concept of the network - as theme, critical model, and methodology - to the study of contemporary art in Canada, since the 1960s.

Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver are the epicentres of the project, while each of the six members of the team has distinctive research interests and affiliations: for instance, Sherry Farrell Racette will explore how Aboriginal art came to thrive in Winnipeg during the 1960s; Martha Langford is interested in ways that photography was institutionally reinvented in the 1970s; Johanne Sloan follows the rise and fall of Montreal's postmodern scene in the 1980s; Alice Ming Wai Jim is mapping Asian-Canadian new-media connections since the 1990s; Anne Whitelaw will study the role of university art galleries; Jeff Derksen is focusing on instances where art, activism and urban culture come together in Vancouver in the 2000s.

Each of these areas of study can be considered a network, involving multiple individuals, communities, encounters, events, places, technologies, and objects. The network model allows us to track the rise of collective desires and aspirations, while also accounting for apparently isolated or ephemeral activities in the Canadian artworld. Across these multiple networks, we are particularly interested in original publication ventures, the increased importance accorded to urban identities, and the becoming-global of the contemporary artworld.

Networked Art History: Assembling Contemporary Art in Canada, from the 1960s to the present has been funded for three years under the Insight Grant program of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The team project is headquartered at the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art.