TRU’s Third Canada Research Chair to Explore Cultural Diversity

KAMLOOPS – Thompson Rivers University (TRU) has successfully nominated its third Canada Research Chair (CRC). Dr. Ashok Mathur, CRC in Cultural and Artistic Inquiry, will be taking up the position this summer.

Dr. Mathur, who specializes in multidisciplinary and multimedia arts, will document and assesss how ethnically and racially diverse artistic producers and researchers have influenced various levels of community participation and community and individual self-image. He will also establish the Centre for Innovation in Culture and the Arts at TRU’s Kamloops campus.

“Canadian multiculturalism is often seen as a concern for large cities; but smaller cities, too, are increasingly coming to terms with questions of cultural diversity,” said Mathur. “The need to accommodate new voices and new forms of artistic and cultural expression is shared by all Canadians wherever they live.”

Dr. Mathur contends that artistic research and exhibition practices may be read variously as implicit and explicit critiques of the workings and failings of Canada’s official multiculturalism policies, and he is particularly interested in how ethnically and racially diverse artistic production and research has influenced levels of community participation, community and individual self-image, access to publication and exhibition spaces, and, especially, policy development.

The development of the Centre for Innovation in Culture and the Arts in Canada, a key element in this research, will bring together artists from all parts of Canada and across the world to investigate cultural diversity in all its forms.

“The centre created by this new Canada Research Chair will allow the world to come to our campus and participate in Dr. Mathur’s studies of the importance of cultural diversity,” said Dr. Tom Dickinson, TRU Associate Vice-President of Research.

Most importantly, this research, in the form of academic dissemination and as artistic production, will address a general public and help to shape public policy in relationship to cultural diversity and the arts in Canada.

Through the use of state-of-the-art communications technology, artist-researchers will be able to develop extensive networks and conduct research and production together over the internet.

For more information, please contact Ashok Mathur at 604-790-4910 or by email at amathur@tru.ca or Tom Dickinson at 250-828-5447.