DÉJÀ VU

began to formulate the questions and concerns that drive this issue when I went to a major biennial, in summer 2018, in which two thirds of the almost 50 artists were people of colour. The celebration of its unprecedented diversity epitomized the sentiment I’d been hearing echoed in Canada after sesquicentennial funding allowed for a seemingly unprecedented inclusion of BIPOC. I was reminded of a prescient quip by artist James Luna, when the 500-year anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s invasion signaled a “gold rush” for Indigenous artists in 1992, that Paul Chaat Smith recalls: “[Luna] knew the sudden attention Indian artists were receiving wasn’t likely to last, Smith quotes Luna: “So when people call me I have to ask ‘Why didn’t you call me before? You’re calling me now, but will you call me in ’93?’”