As part of the closing events of Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years, Plug In ICA will host a curatorial talk by Richard Hill on Jimmie Durham and the launch of Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation through the Lens of Cultural Diversity.

Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation through the Lens of Cultural Diversity is the third in a three-volume series addressing the complex notion of reconciliation in a national landscape. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation brings together disparate voices to address how communities—immigrant, racialized, ‘new’ Canadians, and other minoritized groups—relate to the intricacies of reconciliation as a concept. Many of the contributors included address questions of land, Aboriginal histories, and different trajectories that have led to the current configuration and conglomeration of peoples in this geographic space. And, a central organizing principle of this collection is artistic practice, specifically in how embedding creative acts within critical responses helps to create a relevant framework of possibilities as we move inexorably into uncertain futures.

Featured within are perspectives from Ashok Mathur, Shirley Bear, Henry Tsang, Glen Lowry, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Joseph Naytowhow, b.h. Yael, Sandra Semchuk, Elwood Jimmy, Dorothy Christian, Rita Wong, Sylvia Hamilton, Meera Margaret Singh, Jamelie Hassan, Miriam Jordan, Renisa Mawani, Rhose Harris-Galia, Sid Chow Tan, Ronald Lee, Bonita Lawrence, Enakshi Dua, Robinder Kaur Sehdev, Srimoyee Mitra, Malissa Phung, Henry Yu, Roy Miki, Ravi de Costa, Tom Clark, Rinaldo Walcott, Mitch Miyagawa, Jen Budney, Jayce Salloum, Rita Shelton Deverell, George Elliott Clarke, Diyan Achjadi, and Kirsten Emiko McAllister.

This event is free and all are welcome.