Museums Aren’t Us

Kent Monkman mischievously sows seeds of truth inside popular propagators of lies

Entering the “Being Legendary” exhibit by Kent Monkman at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum offers an extraordinary step forward on an important journey. (All photos by me.)

In a lecture hall at Montreal’s McGill University some four years ago, Kent Monkman gave a talk about his Shame & Prejudice exhibit, showing at the McCord Museum. I had just moved back to Canada after a decade in New York. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this talk served as a re-immigration process, inviting me to a more proper form of citizenship, seeming to say:

“These are the pages you skipped growing up here, and a few more that got written while you were out. Get caught up.”

I visited the Shame & Prejudice exhibit three times in the following weeks, spending hours standing, sitting, breathing, and being among the life-size canvasses and cradle boards. These were visual prompts for stories ranging from the Sixties Scoop and genocide, to sexual mischief and intergenerational play.

This first round of Monkman exposures served as a watershed experience for me. So when my mom invited me to join her to see his Being Legendary exhibit…