Book Launch of “Trading on Art. Cultural Diplomacy and Free Trade in North

Trading on Art: Cultural Diplomacy and Free Trade in North America is a call to attend to the power relationships that underpin art and its circulation. The book centres visual art as a mediating force, exploring how art is intertwined with the negotiation of free trade in North America in the late twentieth century. The book plays particular attention to the use of art to forge ties between Canada and Mexico, as well as how art was mobilized to construct and circulate ideas about North American identity. Beyond demonstrating how exhibitions communicated government-supported narratives about North American economic integration, Trading on Art also reveals how art served as a venue for dissent about free trade.

Through analysis of art, exhibitions, and museum initiatives, the book demonstrates art as a vital media in which free trade and ideas about North America were negotiated. For more information see: https://www.ubcpress.ca/trading-on-art.

Sarah E.K. Smith is Canada Research Chair in Art, Culture and Global Relations at Western University.

This presentation will feature comments from:

Rachelle Dickenson -Associate Curator Indigenous Art, Indigenous Ways and Decolonization - and Ingrid Berlanda Vasile -First Secretary. Head of Cultural and Tourism Promotion for the Mexican Embassy in Canada -.

Host or Publisher Embassy of Mexico