Dr. Aynur Kadir’s research focuses on practices and theories of design and the study of interactive multimedia in the humanities, ethnographic practice and museum curation. She works with local communities in northwest China, in the Pacific Northwest and in the Six Nation Territories to develop digital media that document, manage, safeguard, and represent Indigenous cultural heritage. She is exploring how different new media such as interactive documentaries, virtual museums, digital archive databases, interactive museum guides, video games and artificial intelligence systems can be designed using collaborative participatory methodologies in order to preserve and revitalize cultural heritage and heal collective trauma. She is currently the principal investigator for Robert Harding and Lois Claxton Humanities and Social Sciences Endowment awarded project “Alternative Narratives: Dialogue with the History of Waterloo County Murals” in collaboration with the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum.
Dr. Kadir’s research interests and applied and pedagogical practice center around larger academic objectives: producing greater multimedia for social justice and decolonizing digital technologies. In her interdisciplinary research program teaching and creative work, she highlights community-based methodologies in curatorial and interactive design practice and the use of technology. She is an advocate for challenging the knowledge hierarchy and facilitate the accessibility of traditional or academic knowledge to the wider public. The ultimate goal of her research is to conceptualize the poetics and politics of interactive media in the representation of traditional knowledge, memory and cultural heritage, and contribute to the ethical use of new media through collaboration with originating communities. Dr. Kadir previous collaborative research includes The Contest of the Fruits, Landscapes of Injustice, Sq’éwlets: A Stó:lo-Coast Salish community in the Fraser River Valley project, AI-generated Anonymity project, Ethnographic Terminalia multimedia and multi-sited exhibitions, and The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage Project.
Recent Exhibitions:
“To Speak With a Golden Voice” Special exhibition for Bill Reid’s 100th Birthday Special Exhibition,” at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver, BC. from July 16, 2020 to April 11, 2021, Curatorial assistant for Gwaai Edenshaw and Beth Carter, produced 5 documentaries in collaboration with Bill Reid’s apprentices and friends
“qaʔ yəxʷ - water honours us:womxn and waterways,” multimedia exhibition at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver, BC. in Collaboration with Beth Carter and the ReMatriate Collective. April 9 - Oct 10, 2019. Featuring water keeper Audrey Siegl (Musqueam ancestral name sχɬemtəna:t) link. (2019) About the exhibition Video link;
“Húy̓at: Our Voices our Land”, immersive exhibition at the Bill Reid Centre, SFU, Burnaby, in collaboration with Dana Lepofsky, Bryan Myles and Mark Wunsch. (2019)
Haida Now: A Visual Feast of Innovation and Tradition, in collaboration with Kate Hennessy, Kwiaahwah Jones, Viviane Gosselin at Museum of Vancouver (2018)
“Sq’éwlets: A Stó:lo-Coast Salish Community in the Fraser River Valley.” Exhibition. The Chilliwack Museum and Archives, Chilliwack B.C. Nov. 2, 2017 – April 2018. Installation inspired by the Virtual Museum of Canada exhibit of the same name, with photographic installation, touch-screen access, video screening room, and objects. Aynur Kadir is the filmmaker and installation designer, with Kate Hennessy, Dave Schaepe, Chief Clarence Pennier, and Sq’éwlets Advisors.
“Intangible: Memory and Innovation in Coast Salish Art” at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver BC, in collaboration with Sharon Fortney, Beth Carter.(2017)
Collaborative Publications:
Visualizing Collaboration: Video Production and Decolonial Curation between the Museum and the University (2021)
Hennessy, K., Lyons, N., Schaepe, D., Blake, M., Phillips, A., Pennier, C., Muntean, R., and Kadir, A. (2018), “Collaborative Digital Curation and Recursive Publics: The Making of Sq’éwlets: A Stó:lō-Coast Salish Community in the Fraser River Valley.”Proceedings of Museums and the Web, 2017, Vancouver: Archives and Museums Informatics (link).
Kadir, A., Hennessy, K., Yalcin, O., and DiPaola, S. (2017), “Embodied Interactions with a Sufi Dhikr Ritual: Negotiating Privacy and Transmission of Intangible Cultural Heritage in ‘Virtual Sama’”. Proceedings of Electronic Visualization and the Arts (EVA), London, June 2017. (Link) Received Best Paper Award
Wong, S., Singhal, S., Neustaedter, C. & Kadir, A. (2017) “Smart Crew: A Smart Watch Design for Collaboration Amongst Flight Attendants,” Proceedings of the Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI 2017). ACM Press (Link)
Lyons, N., Schaepe, D. M., Hennessy, K., Blake, M., Pennier, C., Welch, J. R., Kadir, A . & Hall, L. (2016). “Sharing Deep History as Digital Knowledge: An ontology of the Sq’éwlets Website Project.” Journal of Social Archaeology, 1469605316668451. (Link)
Hennessy, K., Fortin, C., Kadir, A., Muntean, R., Ward, R. (2015)
Producing New Media Ethnographies with a Multi-Sited Approach. Proceedings of ISEA’15: 21st International Symposium for Electronic Arts 2014 (August, 2015, Vancouver B.C.), 8 pages. [pdf]