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| Carol Podedworny Photo courtesy of Nadezhda Lyra |
Carol Podedworny is the Director and Chief Curator at McMaster Museum of Art. She graduated from the Museum Studies program in 1984 and got a Master of Arts from York University in 1990. She has worked tirelessly to make space for Indigenous voices within museum institutions and to promote critical scholarship for Indigenous art.
What is your favourite memory from your time in the MMSt program?
I would say the internship, we were given the opportunity to do internships at various cultural institutions in the Summer term. I worked for the McMichael Canadian Collection, the AGO, and the ROM.
Internships were an opportunity to have hands-on practical experience of things that we were learning through lectures in the classroom and to tangibly contribute to the work that was being done in cultural organizations. You also had the opportunity to meet colleagues in the field. So for many reasons, it was a really great experience.
Can you tell me about your path to becoming Director and Chief curator of McMaster?
For the most part, after I finished Museum Studies, I worked as a curator. It wasn't until I went to the University of Waterloo in 2006, that I became a Director, actually Director/Curator. I think that's one of the things about our field that needs attention, there isn't a great deal of succession planning. For the most part, many of us who end up as directors actually started our careers as curators.
What do you think could be done in the field to improve succession planning?
I think there could be mentoring opportunities within institutions and that there could be formal training programs provided elsewhere. I know there's an excellent program for training museum directors in the United States, but we don’t have a similar program here. I've been pretty fortunate at McMaster as it has an incredible continuing education program and developing, leading, and managing people is part of that program. At the museum, I look at the senior curator position as an opportunity to mentor that person towards potentially being the next director.
When you graduated from the program, was it a lot of contract work?
No, but I think that is a condition of the year in which I graduated. The amount of competition within the City of Toronto for any kind of employment was pretty high. So I made the decision that I would look beyond the city to find employment. I was subsequently hired as the curator of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. That was a pretty significant opportunity for me. At the time, the institution was called the Thunder Bay National Exhibition Center and Center for Indian Art. They had within their permanent collection a long term loan from the Canadian Museum of History (which was then called the Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC)). I didn't just have the opportunity to work in Thunder Bay and work with the collection, but also with the CMC's collection. Thunder Bay was an important move as it offered opportunities to work at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, with partner institutions across the country, with contemporary First Nations art, and with funding opportunities in the north which rivaled those in the south. Many doors were opened in taking that position in 1984 that have stayed with me for my entire career.
What are some of the greatest risks you have taken in your career?
I think going to Thunder Bay was a risk. I got there in the fall of 1984. I don't know if you have talked about 1988 and the museum community in Canada in your classes, but 1988 was when the Glenbow Spirit Sings controversy occurred – it resulted in a crisis in museum practice internationally such that our work in the community was changed forever. It was a pretty volatile period, it was an exercise in negotiating and I would say it was risky, for sure. On the other hand all these years later, it's actually the reason why I argued for a position for an Indigenous curator in our museum today. When we hired Rhéanne Chartrand, three years ago, there were only three other permanent Indigenous curators in the country: at the AGO, the NGC, and the McKenzie Art Gallery (an arm of the Saskatchewan First Nations University).
By hiring an Indigenous curator has your institution been able to tackle new issues with a new point of view?
What I have found most interesting is not the collecting of Indigenous art nor the exhibition of Indigenous art, but Rhéanne’s commitment to decolonize the institution through day to day practices within the museum. It's a big issue for her, it’s something she came here saying, ‘I need to think about how I place myself in this colonial institution, and within the broader context of McMaster University – also a colonial institution.’ Our curator has put forward a ten page document with supporting documents, such as from the TRC, etc. That change, I would argue, is what's going to change the institution.
Is there one thing you could point to as a big shift in the museum culture and your institution?
I would say decolonization is our current focus and concern. The fact that there is an Indigenous voice in the museum speaking on behalf of Indigenous peoples is important. For Rhéanne, her approach is always informed by her sense of responsibility to her community. I would say this is something that's evolving, we're transitioning to it. I think that it may take years to achieve.
What is one of your failures that was a great learning experience?
I had written an article that was essentially an excerpt of my M.A. thesis, First Nations Art & the Canadian Mainstream, in a Canadian art magazine. I was then invited as a speaker to the National Gallery of Canada’s Land, Spirit, Power symposium documenting the 1992 Columbus Quin-centenary. When you're at university you're able to really examine a topic. As I was examining an early history of exhibitions of Aboriginal art in Canada, I found ample evidence of the exclusion and ghettoizing of Indigenous art, artists, and artistic practices. In my article I had named individuals who had been working at an earlier time and how their practices had caused issues within the representation of First Nations work in the modern art museum. I was shocked and appalled and looking for a reason beyond flat out racism, to explain why Indigenous work in Canada had been dealt with as it had in museums and art museums. Unfortunately, what I took to be “the facts” meant that I named institutions and exhibitions in my talk at the NGC – of course people took exception! If I had that incident to do over today, I would be much more careful about how I said things. I would say that was a failure, on the other hand, naming and calling out, matters. Today more so than ever before.
You have held many leadership roles, what is your advice for being a great leader?
I think it makes a big difference if you encourage the people who are working with you to be the experts in their area, no micro-managing. Also, allowing people to do well and providing opportunities for professional development matters. You want people to be happy in their work. You want everyone to know and be working towards the same goal. I find here at the museum, that everybody knows what we're working towards, and everybody takes particular pride in what their area contributes to the overall goals of the institution.
What advice would you give to museum professionals entering the sector today?
What I have always said, and firmly believe, is that we are working in a huge country with a very tiny cultural community, relatively speaking. I believe that no matter where you are in your career – in school, just finished, in a first job, doing an internship or volunteer work, wherever you are working, whomever you are working with now – you will absolutely run into them again in your future if you continue to work in the cultural community in this country. Find mentors, find people you respect and enjoy and stay connected! You will come across one another again – for sure!
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