Open Space is acknowledging 50 Years on this Land, by holding events that look at artists’ practices and the systems that support them through a critical lens. In this context, when IBPoC (Indigenous, Black and people of colour) artists’ work is being discussed, the focus is often on systemic racism; Eurocentricity in the arts; colonialism and White supremacy; political struggles for justice, etc, etc.

Of course, these factors are of critical importance and must be considered in art making. However, Crossing Paths : Blazing Trails proposes to start the convos with the actual creative process of artists - how does one create? - and work outwards from there. This approach is decolonial in nature and eschews the formulaic futility of the Diversity, Inclusion, Equity (DIE) paradigm so endemic in the arts today.

Crossing Paths : Blazing Trails insists that ‘including’ IBPoC artists into a system that itself is antiquated, with its multiple blindspots is flawed. Instead of trying to fix a broken system, let’s redesign it! Starting from the inside - artists’ practice - moving out to ask, “what would an art system, that was not Eurocentric, actually look like?”

The roundtables might touch on various themes in art making. For example:

• Worldview is made from culturally-specific meanings

• Elaborating protocols for knowledge exchange and sharing

• Temporality - how time is defined

• Intentionality of an individual artist

• Connection to IBPoC communities

• Socio-political justice is almost always a way of framing

• Self-determined IBPoC critical discourse

This approach could then elaborate wider issues. For example:

• Customary and contemporary IBPoC art practices

• The construction of the Canadian arts system over the last 50 years

• The various meanings of ‘interdisciplinarity’ in art making

• How arts and cultural policy should be made

• Looking to the future of arts practices