Rogers: Can you give me an example?  Razack: Well, the panels normally include very traditional photos of the RCMP, or an aboriginal person looking very anthropological and tribal, and then right next to it is this panel inserted that tells you that the Indian Act actually declared who had rights, who didn't, what one's status was, what it wasn't. Then there are panels on the immigration acts that expelled Chinese...Sly little notes like that particular one, [tells you] that what you are seeing here is not really the history of Canada.  Rogers: And the purpose is?  Razack: Well the purpose is clearly critique, to say that there is an underbelly to the images you are seeing here that you aren't being told about. The other artists do a similar thing, very oppositional and playful.  Rogers: How do you see the intent of the exhibit Rachel?  Rachel James: Hopefully, people come to look at the pieces in the context of the Canadian historical galleries, and have their imagination peaked. Basically, [the purpose is] not to look at the art of the Group of Seven just as it is presented at the gallery, but to interact with these particular pieces that we've presented and use them as a vehicle for basically inserting your own personal reactions to the Group of Seven.  So these pieces work as a way to excite us about art, to think about artworks as not only something that the museum presents to us, but something we can relate to daily in our lives. That's something important about these contemporary works being in a historical gallery.  Rogers: So, it's a living and continuing relationship?  James: Yes. That is extremely key to the intention of the curator. [The intention] was to look at what the museum does. Is it just an archive or is it a place where we are daily interacting with art and making it part of our daily lives?
This Morning host Shelagh Rogers speaks with artist Rachel James and academic Sherene Razack about the Art Gallery of Ontario's new exhibit on Canadian art called Private Thoughts, Public Moments.