What Else Might Be Possible? Towards a Decolonial Criticism

n her 2019 book of essays, , Amy Fung explores the uncomfortable space between settler colonialism and art criticism. The art critic, who was born in Kowloon, Hong Kong and raised in the Treaty 6 area of Edmonton, calls into question the myth of multiculturalism that underpins Canada’s national identity and its pervasiveness in contemporary art. At one point, Fung writes about attempting to ask a question when she sat in the audience of a Q&A panel consisting of the finalists for a Canadian art award. Though Fung doesn’t name the specific prize, it becomes clear from the names of the finalists that she’s referring to the 2017 edition of the Sobey Art Award, Canada’s largest monetary art prize for an artist under 40. The artists included Raymond Boisjoly, Jacynthe Carrier, Divya Mehra, Bridget Moser and the prize’s winner, Ursula Johnson. The panel moderator at the award’s press event represented what Fung called an “authoritative” voice of the Canadian art world. Fung felt that he “did not connect with or understand” the finalist artists, which, for the first time in the award’s history were entirely either BIPOC and/or women. Because the moderator initiated the conversation with a Northrop Frye quote, the panel conversation stayed rooted in what Fung calls “outdated inklings.” The questions from the moderator and the audience expressed frustration with the artists’ “audacity” to make work that was illegible to them, which implied that whiteness was their default framework for perceiving the work. In attempting to align