POSTDOCTORAL CURATORIAL FELLOWSHIP

Starting Spring 2023

with the

Past Wrongs, Future Choices

Partnership Project

Collaborate on an international team

Engage Histories of Injustice

Support contemporary art

Past Wrongs, Future Choices is a seven-year (2022-29), multi-sector, interdisciplinary partnership on the mistreatment of people of Japanese descent (Nikkei) in allied countries across the Americas and the Pacific in the 1940s.

Over the next several years, our team will create an exhibition that will explore history through the lens of contemporary art. Launching in 2026, the exhibition will be developed in collaboration and coordination with team members creating similar exhibitions in Australia, Brazil, and the United States. In addition, a digital exhibition will bridge each of these local projects, fostering a global conversation about contemporary art, legacies of injustice, and public accountability today.

Our partnership includes 40 institutions and over 100 participants from universities, community organizations, and museums across the world. We are funded by a major grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by the participating institutions.

Learn more at: https://www.landscapesofinjustice.com/project_background/

Democratic societies need to choose to learn from histories of injustice. Present challenges of migration, racism, and security are global in scale. So too is the public knowledge necessary for understanding how we came to this point and how we can forge new paths forward.

The Postdoctoral Fellow will assist Sherri Kajiwara, Director|Curator of the Nikkei National Museum (NNM) in the development of a Canadian exhibition of contemporary Nikkei art. They will also support coordination and communication across the curatorial teams in each participating country. They will participate in the development of a digital project linking the local exhibitions. The successful candidate will contribute to all aspects of exhibit development, production, mobilization, communication, and promotion. They will be responsible for project coordination, contribute to exhibit related publications and to the travel, as appropriate, of the exhibition to other venues. The position will be based primarily at the University of Victoria, with regular travel to the Nikkei National Museum in Burnaby, BC.

The Postdoctoral Fellowship is valued at $52,000/year and is renewable for a total of three and a half years. Additional funds will defray the cost of the Postdoctoral Fellow’s travel for research and presentations related to the curatorial process.

Applications should include a cover letter, a CV, three letters of recommendation and if available, a writing sample. Please e-mail applications or any questions to Anthony Auchterlonie, Project Manager, Past Wrongs, Future Choices, at pwfc_office@uvic.ca . We will begin to review applications on April 15, 2023 and will continue on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

About University of Victoria

Jordan Stanger-Ross is professor of history and the Project Director of the Past Wrongs, Future Choices (PWFC) partnership at the University of Victoria. His work over the past decade has focused on community-engaged research on the dispossession of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s (Landscapes of Injustice). He and his colleagues are currently building a new partnership (PWFC) to examine the mistreatment of Nikkei civilians in allied countries in the 1940s, from a comparative/transnational perspective.

Connections working at University of Victoria