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If you’re looking for a special vintage to toast the new year, I suggest you try what I’ve distilled here based on 100 Arts stories we published in 2020. If it were an elixir, whoever drinks a drop would gain newfound inspiration – as well as instant immunity to pessimistic projections that devalue the arts. With every Arts story our team produced in this year of upheavals and change, it was clear to me why studying, practising and supporting the arts is so important.
Arts writers provided indispensable commentary into the profound resonances and ramifications of visual language when confronting both the pandemic and anti-Black racism. They probed the visions and crafts of creative practitioners in the pandemic and beyond.
They investigated how structures, institutions and creative choices of arts producers enable or obstruct flourishing of people, emerging communities and cities’ economies. They dove into popular stories to explain the unexpected and bizarre – like why the U.S. vice-presidential debate about governing 330 million people was hijacked by a fly.
Here’s to new beginnings.
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The Year in Arts
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Allison Morehead, Queen's University, Ontario
Artist Edvard Munch depicted despair provoked by disease in turn-of-the-century works. In these coronavirus times, his iconic image speaks to our anxieties about illness and societal collapse.
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Tamari Kitossa, Brock University
Anti-black violence exists against the backdrop of the political and cultural dehumanization of Black people. How did this happen and where do we go from here?
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James M. Pitsula, University of Regina
The KKK appeared in Canada in 1921. Nowhere else in Canada did the Klan achieve the influence it attained in Saskatchewan, where it helped bring down a government.
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Sally Hickson, University of Guelph
Flies have long held symbolic meaning in the history of art. In portraits made in Renaissance Europe, the presence of a fly symbolizes the transience of human life.
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Gloria Blizzard, Dalhousie University; Gillian Turnbull, Ryerson University
The classical music scene in Canada is shaped by histories and hierarchies that reinforce racism and cultural appropriation. Black classical musicians are calling for systemic change.
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Safiyya Hosein, Ryerson University
The Urdu-speaking powerhouse, Ms. Marvel, has destabilized stereotypes of Muslims and reinforced ideas about American exceptionalism.
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Riley Kucheran, Ryerson University; Alysia Myette, Ryerson University
This year's Indigenous Fashion Week was a huge success despite being virtual. Indigenous designers engaged daily in the tasks of translating Indigenous worldviews and practices.
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Emily Abrams Ansari, Western University
People rely on familiar music to get through difficult times. Refugees from El Salvador's civil war used music to light up memories of their past.
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