What's going on with the National Gallery of Canada's high-profile layoffs?

In late November, the National Gallery of Canada found itself embroiled in controversy when four of the gallery's senior staffers — among them Greg Hill, senior curator of Indigenous art, and Kitty Scott, chief curator of the NGC — were suddenly dismissed from their jobs.

In an Instagram post he made the same day he was let go, Hill was clear about why he thought he had been fired: "I don't agree with and am deeply disturbed by the colonial and anti-Indigenous ways the Department of Indigenous Ways and Decolonization is being run. Full stop."

Since then, a wider conversation has emerged online and in the press about the course the NGC is taking. An investigation in Friday's Globe and Mail uncovered more concerns from past and current employees about the direction and culture of the gallery, while others are trying to get the federal government involved in increasing transparency. 

While Hill looks for more answers on why he was fired, leaders of the NGC are defending their plans to modernize the gallery, positioning their changes as the right ones to help overcome the gallery's exclusionary past.

'The world has changed a lot in the last five years'

"I think it's our responsibility of the board to look ahead and not to simply accept the status quo," Françoise E. Lyon, the chair of the board of the National Gallery, told CBC Arts in an interview.

In May 2021, the National Gallery introduced its new strategic plan. Among its key goals was to "centre Indigenous ways of knowing and being," and "empower, support, and build a diverse and collaborative team."

"The world has changed a lot in the last five years," says Lyon. "I think because we're a public gallery, there's an expectation that we will move forward in making the gallery itself a place where people from everywhere in Canada … will recognize themselves in the art that we purchase, and will feel comfortable in the experience that they have within the organization."

The strategic plan was developed in part by then-chief operating officer and director Sasha Suda. As part of the plan, a Department of Indigenous Ways and Decolonization was created in February 2022, headed by NGC vice-president Steven Loft and department director Michelle LaVallee. In a statement released when the appointments were announced, the gallery said: "Through these new appointments, the Gallery is committed to supporting the self-determination of Indigenous peoples, and to amplify the voices of Indigenous artists, curators, scholars, Elders, knowledge keepers and creative and cultural producers."

'Almost from the outset, the conversation was one-way'

Hill worked at the National Gallery of Canada for 22 years. He estimates he and his team brought about 1,300 Indigenous works of art into the collection. "We did very important exhibitions that contributed to the entire field that lifted the voices of many Indigenous artists," he tells CBC Arts. 

As senior curator of Indigenous art, Hill expected he'd be able to play a role in centring Indigenous "ways of knowing and being." His entire role at the gallery was, as he viewed it, about taking decolonizing actions. 

But Hill's questions and concerns were often met with silence. "Almost from the outset, the conversation was one-way," he said.

He kept pushing — but on Nov. 17, he was called into a meeting. Effective immediately, he was dismissed from his role. And he wasn't the only one: Scott, as well as Stephen Gritt, director of conservation and technical research, and Denise Siele, senior manager of communications, all lost their jobs. 

The gallery's spokesperson says they can't discuss personnel reasons for privacy reasons. However, in a statement, interim director and CEO Angela Cassie said that the gallery "needed to look at how we can do things differently and move away from traditional ways of working that are no longer reflective of the kind of institution we need and want to be."

'The gallery is no better off'

On Dec. 9, The Globe and Mail released a lengthy investigation into the culture of the National Gallery in the aftermath of the dismissals of four senior staffers. It paints a picture of a workplace undergoing tumultuous changes, making many employees and donors very concerned. 

"Management has framed this evolution as necessary in order to course-correct the gallery's past and move it into the future," wrote Shannon Proudfoot in the story. "But critics say that while the aims are laudable, the implementation has left staff feeling profoundly confused, undermined and alienated. Current and former staff members told The Globe that the strategic plan and its goals are so vague that the gallery is no better off in its efforts to become a truly inclusive art institution."

In addition to the concerns raised about the direction of the Department of Indigenous Ways and Decolonization, there have been worries about the number of staff maintaining the collections. Hill says there has been no staff in the Department of Contemporary Art until very recently. A new curator was hired in the Indigenous art department before Hill was let go, but he says the department was chronically understaffed. (Lyon told CBC Arts that once a permanent CEO is in place, more hiring will occur.)

The story follows a number of concerns raised by former employees and artists who have worked with the National Gallery. Seven former senior staffers wrote an open letter to Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez raising concerns about the stability of the gallery. (In a media scrum on Dec. 7, Rodriguez said he wrote a letter that morning to the chair of the board of trustees, expressing his sincere concern about the work environment and asking for solutions.)

Lyon says the board is supportive of the strategic plan. "It is a journey that we've embarked on over the last three or four years and that we hope everybody will embark on with us to make [the gallery] the best that it can be," she says.

'[Nothing] I would wish upon anyone'

Much of the tension comes down to conflict between how management is navigating change that some are not sure is needed — at least to the extent that has been proposed by the strategic plan released in 2021.

"They're saying we have to stop doing things in the old way, but they don't say which things they're going to leave behind and what they're going to replace them with," Charles Hill, a former NGC curator, told the Globe.

Lyon says she hopes the focus will be on creating a more inclusive gallery. "We're not trying to take away anything. We're trying to amplify and add things," she said, adding that she views change as a good thing.

For Greg Hill, it's a tragic end to a long and successful career as a curator at the National Gallery of Canada. "It's certainly [nothing] I would wish upon anyone I know that has been devoted to something for a long period," he said. "But I'm confident and proud of the things that myself and our team achieved."