Teaching
Dr. Julie Nagam is an Associate Professor in the department of history at the University of Winnipeg. Dr. Nagam’s research interests include cultural and concealed geographies, Indigenous contemporary art, Indigenous theory and methodologies, digital and new media art, public art, critical, curatorial and cultural theory.
Courses Taught
HIST 3814 Indigenous Art
This lecture/seminar course offers an introduction to the arts of indigenous peoples with a focus on contemporary First Nations and Métis art in Canada. Students explore critical approaches to the social and political issues surrounding tradition, appropriation, modernity, and personal identity in our survey of visual art. Forms examined may include painting, sculpture, print making, installation, dance, music, theatre, new media, and performance. Local artists, exhibitions, and collections offer students first-hand experience of current art production in Manitoba.
HIST-3833 From the Reel to the Digital: Indigenous Film and New Media Art
This course explores how Indigenous artists have used digital technology, video, and film to engage with colonization, assimilation, residential schools, and other government policies in Canada and across the globe. The course themes are examined through the theoretical frameworks of visual, cultural, queer, and gender studies. These frames assist in analyzing how Indigenous artists create a visual language of resistance, revitalization, and decolonization. Artists explore topics such as the land, language, identity, sovereignty, environmental racism, economic development, health, music, art, dance, human rights, and spirituality through various media and artistic practices.
ARTH 642 – Aspects of Media and New Media: Entering Public Space armed With Indigenous Methodologies and Curatorial Practices
Art History Department - Concordia University
Winter 2019.
This seminar course engages with critical theories and practices in Indigenous contemporary art, public space and curatorial methods. Night festivals and public art have been pushing the boundaries of public and private spheres. This course reflects on Indigenous theory, curatorial methods and methodologies, and concepts in art history, museum studies, geography, colonialism, place, race, gender, ability and sexuality. The course investigates concepts of the land, concepts of space and place, and contemporary arts institutions within Canada and abroad.
HIST 3826 Art History in Focus – Urban Interventions: Art, Design, and the City
This course offers students the opportunity for intensive study of a single artist's work or artistic movement on whose work there is a significant body of art historical writing and criticism. Each time the course is offered the name of the artist or movement in focus will be listed in the Timetable.
HIST 4831 Practicum in Curatorial Studies
This course combines the theory and practice of curatorial work, public history and experiential learning for students interested in achieving a university credit by working with a local museum or art gallery. The Practicum provides opportunities to explore a range of placements with host institutions in order to learn about being a curator. Students are expected to work 6-8 hours a week in the host institution. Program partners will provide training for the interns who have chosen to work with them. Partnership opportunities include, but are not limited to Winnipeg Art Gallery, Plug In Contemporary Art Institute, Buhler Gallery, and other local galleries and museums.
HIST 4815 Cultures of the Past: Art History & Memory – Diverse Spaces: The Collection of Multicultural and Indigenous Art and Artifacts in Canadian Museums and Contemporary Galleries
This course brings students into first hand contact with selected art objects from the past centuries. Students are introduced to the concepts of periodization and conservation of old art objects, and learn how to document, analyse and write about the art objects which are kept in local institutions. The class examines works in their social, historical and artistic contexts, using primary and secondary sources and technical resources available locally. Students learn the practical aspects of art historical work.
Institutes, Field Courses, Experiential Learning
Indigenous Methodologies: Building Towards a Collective and Self-Determined Future
March 2020
Sydney, AUS
University of Winnipeg and Concordia University students attended this workshop hosted in Sydney, Australia. The workshop focused on the discussions in Indigenous methodologies, including Canadian First Nations and Metis concepts of consultation with community experts, collaboration, learning-by-doing, creative intervention, land-based knowledge, working with an intergenerational focus, and listening to stories. Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) refers to Inuit traditional knowledge, technology, and societal values. At the center of this philosophy is respect for relationships: to the land, with the arctic flora and fauna, between family and community. The key principles of IQ have been essential to the well-being and resilience of Inuit from time immemorial to the present day. Kaupapa Māori as the “conceptualisation of Māori knowledge” and this knowledge comes from a distinctly Māori ontological and epistemological perspective, including metaphysical and cosmological beliefs and observations that inform the primary cultural frame through which Māori understand, teach, and engage with each other and wider society. Following these principles, this research project applied Indigenous methods, IQ along with Māori framework which was discussed and drawn from the scholarly work in each geographic region. We worked from Indigenous theory, knowledge, praxis, and methodologies that rely on orality, performativity, and embodied knowledge.
Summer Institute in Venice
May 6-13, 2019
Venice, Italy
The first Inuit Futures Institute, took place in Venice (6-13 May 2019) in collaboration with Office of Contemporary Art Norway, and the Inuit Art Quarterly, published by the Inuit Art Foundation. The Inuit Futures Institute in Venice mobilized a critical mass of Inuit arts leaders to provide hands-on mentorship opportunities in film analysis, curatorial practice, and art criticism to emerging Inuit students of the arts from across the Canadian Arctic on-site on the occasion of award-winning video arts collective Isuma’s representation of Canada at the 2019 Venice Biennale, marking the first presentation by Inuit artists at the Canada Pavilion.
Indigenous Theory and Curatorial Practice (Field Course)
May 2-8, full, consecutive days, 2018.
Montreal, QC and Ottawa, ON
In this advanced seminar students will learn about the history and theory of the exhibition and collection of contemporary (1967-present) Indigenous art in Canada, and gain hand's-on experience by meeting with Indigenous art curators, visiting contemporary art exhibitions, and conducting archival research in an Indigenous archive of national significance. Over the course of an intensive week of study, lectures, museum visits and tours, students will be exposed to many facets of Indigenous exhibition and curatorial practice, and engage with critical theories and practices in Indigenous contemporary art and curatorial methods. This seminar centres Indigenous theory, curatorial methodologies, and concepts in art history, museum studies, settler colonial art histories, place, race, gender, and sexuality. In this seminar, students will visit galleries, museums and contemporary arts institutions in Montreal and Ottawa, work directly in an archive, review one of the exhibitions visited, and propose their own imagined exhibitions as a final project. Accommodations, travel, and museum and conference entrance fees will be provided (students could anticipate some minor costs associated with their participation in this field seminar while traveling).
This course will be blended with a course taught by Dr. heather Igloliorte at the Concordia University Students will also meet many invited guest curators, artists and others to speak and participate in the course with the students, including an exciting list of currently practicing Indigenous scholars, artists, and curators.
Teaching History
The University of Winnipeg
2015 – current
Associate Professor – Tenured and Canadian Research Chair in Indigenous Arts, Collaboration and Digital Media
University Research Chair of the History of Indigenous Arts of North America University of Winnipeg and the Winnipeg Art Gallery (2015-19)
Courses: HIST 3833 – From The Reel to the Digital Indigenous New Media; HIST 3826 – Art History in Focus Urban Interventions: Art, Design and the City; HIST 3814 – Indigenous Art History; HIST 4815 – (Cultures of the Past: Art History & Memory) Diverse Spaces: The Collection of Multicultural and Indigenous Art and Artifacts in Canadian Museums and Contemporary Galleries; Indigenous Theory and Curatorial Practices; From the Reel to the Digital: Indigenous Film and New Media Art; Aspects of Media and New Media: Entering Public Space armed With Indigenous Methodologies and Curatorial Practices
OCAD University, Assistant Professor
2009–2015
Assistant Professor - Tenure Track
Indigenous Visual Culture Program and Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies
Undergraduate Courses: Indigenous Arts, Cultural Geographies: Narrative, Landscape and Community; Gender, Globalization, and Social Change; Indigenous Cultural Politics: Gender, Art and Activism; Urban Life: Art, Design and the City; From the Reel to the Digital: Indigenous Film and New Media Art; The Story of Us: Aboriginal Peoples of the Americas.
Graduate Supervisions
Dr. Nagam has been the Principal Advisor or a Committee Member for fourteen Masters or PhD students. She supervises in areas including Curatorial Practices, Contemporary Art, Design, and New Media Studies, Communication and Culture Studies, and other programs.
Dr. Nagam is Adjunct Faculty at the following institutions:
Adjunct Faculty Member in York University’s Graduate Program in Theatre & Performance Studies, 2013–2022
Adjunct Faculty Member at University of Manitoba, 2015–2022
Adjunct Faculty Member at OCAD University Faculty of Graduate Studies, 2015–2019
Research Assistants and Mentorship
Dr. Nagam employs several research assistants each year to work on her various research projects. She also mentors emerging cultural workers as part of her work with GLAM Collective.