Visual Art & Encounters
Museum and Labour history with Brooke Downey
As an emerging museum professional, Brooke quickly became interested in labour issues facing the cultural sector. Based on her own experiences in the non-profit sector, as well as union movements happening in the U.S. and the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, she was inspired to write a series of articles on museum labour with an intersectional lens. For Mayworks Festival, she will be taking this approach to the broader cultural sector and addressing labour issues which pervade for workers in the field. As problems cultural workers in Canada face are continuously obscured and ignored, the hope is for these articles to serve as a starting point for public conversations and actions that benefit all workers.
Tuesday, May 4th: Moments from Canadian Cultural Labour Relations
Tuesday, May 11th: Labour of Love: Emotional Taxation on the Front-line
Tuesday, May 18th: Who Represents Us? Building Solidarity amongst Canadian Cultural Workers
Tuesday,, May 25th: It’s Only Temporary: Accountability in Precarious Work
Every Tuesday throughout May one essay will be launched and made available for the remainder of the festival.
Brooke downey
is a recent graduate of the Master of Museum Studies program at the University of Toronto, where she also received her HBA in Political Science and Women & Gender Studies. Brooke is passionate about political engagement and spent the early part of her career working for civic engagement focused non-profits in the Greater Toronto Area. Previously, she has contributed articles to Musings, a Museum Studies blog, and for Toronto the Just, an exhibition on eight Toronto women who fought for equality.