Studio Courses

As part of their training, students in ICSLAC’s Graduate Diploma in Curatorial Studies participate actively in a studio course, designed to develop curatorial skills through a hands-on approach to exhibition practices. Studio focus either on the visual arts or on interdisciplinary approaches to curating practised in natural and cultural history museums, interpretation/discovery centres, and science centres. They culminate in group exhibitions programed by the Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG) or other partnering institutions.

Past Studio Course Exhibitions

Beyond Billings: Stories and Belonging(s)

Billings Estate National Historic Site, April 17 to October 14, 2025

This exhibition highlights a selection of objects drawn from the Billings Estate archive by twelve individual curators, students enrolled in Carleton’s Curatorial Studies graduate diploma program. These belongings weave together notions of time, past lives, travel, and the balance between decoration and function. Exploring the idea of the perception of objects from different perspectives, each object is highlighted in a vignette — a brief but powerful glimpse of moments in time — the pieces displayed here invite visitors to consider the lives of the objects beyond their arrival to the Billings Family.

Curated by the CURA 5001 Curatorial team: Sandra Bruku, Emily Critch, Keisha Cuffie, Emmanuelle A. Desrochers, Eve Dutil, Acacia Frempong-Manso, Dhatri Gunupudi, Maya Mills, Moira Power, Patricia Roussel, Michelle Taylor, Xiaofan Wu, and Dr. Stephen Inglis. Organized by the City of Ottawa Museums and Historic Sites and Carleton University.

Weaving Together: The Art of Shirley Bear

MacOdrum Library, Carleton, April 22 to May 30, 2024

This exhibition features a selection of works by Shirley Bear (1936-2022), Wolastoqiyik artist, poet, curator, herbalist, and respected Elder from Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation) in Wabanaki territory, also known as New Brunswick. Through nine of Bear’s works and two pieces of her poetry, Weaving Together considers basketry as a metaphor for relationality. Just as splints of ash are woven together to form a basket, Bear reveals Wabanaki life as a constellation of entwined relationships between people, community, and land across generations. In this way, her work encourages a different — and more malleable — understanding of time. The works are selected from the Carleton University Art Gallery collection and are being exhibited for the first time since their donation to the gallery in 1995.

Weaving Together: The Art of Shirley Bear is curated by Victoria Hawco, Hanako Hubbard-Radulovich, Maya Maayergi, Dana Martin-Wylie, Melanie Nunez, Sevane Paroyan and Peter Salmon, graduate students enrolled in a winter 2024 Curatorial Studies seminar taught by Alexandra Kahsenni:io Nahwegahbow, in partnership with Carleton University Art Gallery. The curators respectfully acknowledge our location on the traditional, unceded territories of the Algonquin Nation, and wish to thank the staff at Carleton University Art Gallery and the Indigenous Art Centre (Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada), and Emma Hassencahl-Perley for their help, support and sound advice in the development of this exhibition.

[Image Credit: Shirley Bear (1936-2022) Wolastoqiyik, Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation) Basket Weaver (1988) Woodcut on paper, edition 5/7, Collection of Carleton University Art Gallery: Gift of Lesley Sinclair, 1995, Photo by Patrick Lacasse]

You, Me & the PTSD

Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families, August 2022

Summer 2022 CURA 5002 students developed a testimony-based pop-up/touring exhibition proposal for the Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families. This project was oriented by Atlas’ goals to:

1. develop a new communication tool to expand the reach of Veteran and Family voices and experiences nationally and internationally,
2. support the lived experiences of Veterans and their Families by providing opportunities to share with and educate others,
3. explore the complex of causes/responses/reactions to PTSD and to encourage greater understanding of and compassion for those living with it, and to
4. enhance awareness of the impacts of PTSD on Veterans and Family members among the general public.

The result was You, Me & the PTSD, a fully-developed exhibition proposal, design and content package reflecting complex causes, responses, and reactions to PTSD and its effects on Veterans, their partners, and families. Central to the exhibition was a memory tree, a living art exhibit inviting Veterans, their families, and members of the public to commemorate their service and the journeys toward healing by contributing (hanging) mementoes and symbolic objects.

Curated by the CURA 5002 Curatorial team: Celeste Billung-Meyer, Jay Dittburner, Nico Mjones, Victoria Pelky, Melissa Pole, Kirstan Schamuhn, Natali Zuniga Rodriguez, and Dr. Trina Cooper-Bolam.

Objects as Evidence/Agents

Carleton Lightroom Gallery, March 2020 [exhibition was installed but never opened due to COVID-19 pandemic closures]

This exhibition was one of the first activations of Carleton’s then newly acquired XDX (industrial design) collection. Conceived as a curated event and installed as a supplement to Johan Voordouw’s New Image of Home, the curated assemblage of domestic design objects, text, and performance that constituted Objects as Evidence/Agents came under Covid-19 quarantine before its scheduled opening.

The exhibition staged curated encounters with domestic objects, interpreting our collective entanglement with the things we use in our everyday lives through diverse multi-disciplinary perspectives. Student-authored texts presented object histories and interrogations prompting would-be visitors to consider the racialized, cultural, gendered, political, and politicized dimensions of domestic objects as seemingly benign as kettles and dining chairs. The subject of a forthcoming volume of Dalhousie Architectural Press’ Canadian Modern Series, Objects as Evidence/Agents revives a dormant teaching collection for a new generation of designers, curators, and scholars.

Curated by the CURA 5002 Curatorial team: Carla Ayukawa, Meredith Boerchers, Rachel Clothier, Bruno deCarvalho, Sonya Gray, Beth McLarty Halfkenny, Arden Hody, Monique Monatch, Gracia Tenorio Pearl, Valerie-Ellen Wood, and Dr. Trina Cooper-Bolam.

Where We Stand

Carleton University Art Gallery. September 25 to December 28, 2022

An exhibition curated by students of our CURA 5001 studio course (visual arts stream) developed under the supervision of Dr. Rachelle Dickenson, Where We Stand brings together artworks selected from CUAG’s collection, made by artists from the eighteenth century to the present, to explore various facets of place-making. Student curators Regatu Asefa, Amanda Boyd, Jasmin Anisa Cardillo, Ashley Carmichael, Sam Nicholls, Leah Ross, Emma Sabry, Gureena Saran are warmly congratulated.  CUAG is warmly thanked for its generous collaboration.

Pegi Nicol MacLeod (1904-1949), “School Garden” (c.1934), watercolour on paper, detail. Gift of Jack and Frances Barwick, 1985.

Haunted by Sir John A. MacDonald in Sandy Hill: A Virtual Exhibition on A Controversial Figure

In partnership with Prime Ministers’ Row and the Ottawa Museum Network, ongoing.

This exhibition aims to critically present Sir John A. Macdonald’s history and legacy through an artifact-based exhibition, rooted in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood in Ottawa.  We are grappling with the figure of Macdonald at a critical time, amid heightened standards of accountability for public figures past and present, and calls for systemic change from anti-colonial and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) movements. Many of the systems protested can be traced back to the policies and ideologies present during and created within the lifetime of Macdonald. Read more… Designed and curated in the context of CURA 5002, a material and intangible culture studio course taught by ICSLAC Instructor Dr. Trina Cooper-Bolam. Student curators: Madeleine McDougall, Haley Menard, Sophie Nakashima, Haruka Toyoda, Anna Verhoeven. 

Family Matters

Carleton University Art Gallery, March 8 – May 15, 2021

This exhibition explores the many ways in which artists approach and represent ideas of kinship, community and belonging. Family Matters brings together a compelling range of prints, drawings, photographs and paintings, dating from the mid-1800s to today, selected from CUAG’s collection. These works variously depict tender moments, document public and private spaces, index the everyday and explore familial roles and relationships. Read more… Designed and curated in the context of CURA 5001, a visual arts studio course taught by ICSLAC Professor Stéphane Roy. Students curators: Kendra Anderson, Patricia Berubé, Shaney Kille, Cynthia Morawski, Phoebe Sampey and Rebecca Watson.

On Location: Human Interventions in the Landscape

Carleton University Art Gallery, May 21 – August 25, 2019

Landscape as a genre and as an understanding of nature as separate from humans is a Western construct. The images by Lorraine Gilbert, Stephen Livick and John Pfahl featured in On Location reflect their exploration of specific sites and their engagement with the genre of landscape photography. Read more… Designed and Curated in the context of CURA 5001, a visual arts studio course taught by ICSLAC Professor Stéphane Roy. Students curators: Amira Ashraf, Tera Bruinsma, Maggie Bryan, Amanda Buessecker, Emilie Hill-Smith, Anna Kim, Jessa Laframboise, Katie Lydiatt, Elizabeth Stewart and Ginny Stovel.

Morsels of Memory

Ottawa Museum Network in partnership with the City of Ottawa’s Gallery 112

A unique exhibition and culinary experience inviting museum visitors, local history buffs, and foodies to discover Ottawa’s evolving relationship with food, Morsels of Memory brings food-related stories and artifacts from Watson’s Mill, Goulbourn Museum, and the Diefenbunker together for the first time in a single exhibition. Read more… Designed and curated in the context of CURA 5002, a material and intangible culture studio course taught by ICSLAC Instructor Dr. Trina Cooper-Bolam.

Carleton Curatorial Laboratory (CCL): Quill Boxes from Mnidoo Mnising

Carleton University Art Gallery, May 14 – August 26, 2018

This exhibition presents sixteen quill boxes made by artists from Mnidoo Mnising (Manitoulin Island). Read more… Designed and curated in the context of CURA 5001, a visual arts pro-seminar taught by ICSLAC Professor Stephen Inglis. Students curators: Andrew Braid, Mark Bujaki, Christopher Davidson, Hilary Dow, Maham Farooq, Christine Hodge, Alexia Kokozaki, Annika Mazzarella and Rebecca Semple.

CUAG, Quill Boxes from Mnidoo Mnising