Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

Throughout national events for Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (trc), a bentwood box created by Coast Salish carver Luke Marston accompanied testimonies across the country. Carved following Northwest Coast traditions, (2012), also known as the “trc box,” took on an important role, and contained material offerings, such as paper notes and photos, left by the trc’s speakers.  (2016) primarily engages with such cultural forms occurring against the backdrop of the trc – forms that include songs, performance, spatial design and visual culture drawing from First Nations, Métis and Inuit modes of practice. focuses on the particular social, political and affective impacts of these cultural forms as “sensory engagement.” It is this notion of sensory engagement that actions, and to consider how these actions carry affective, social and political meaning, both through the immediate context of the trc’s events, and wider discussions on the topic of reconciliation. This framing of aesthetics notably shifts the reader’s attention away from the discrete aesthetic categories of cultural objects, towards the social and political context of particular aesthetic relations. These relations encompass, for instance, the sensory memories of residential school survivors, the process of hearing a voice sharing testimony, and the spatial proximity of settler publics in witnessing.