[1] In 2012, Crosby acted as a co-curated with Karen Duffek at the Vancouver Belkin and Satellite Gallery's show, "The Paintings of Henry Speck: Udz’stalis.
"[3] Henry Speck (1908-1971) is a kwakwaka’waka artist who became a "newly discovered phenomenon" in 1964, when his paintings of masked dancers, coastal creatures, and sea monsters were shown at Vancouver's New Design Gallery.
[7] Crosby states, "I don’t think Speck and his work ‘slipped away’ so much as the genealogy of ‘modern art’ by Aboriginal artists cannot account for such qualities as their traditional, metaphysical referents, or their seemingly positivist focus on form.
"[7] In July 2013, Crosby held a "Feedback" talk for the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver) in response to Itee Pootoogook's exhibit "Buildings and Lands".
[8] Instead of traditional subjects such as igloos and parka-clad hunters, Pootogook shows her audience everyday works, one made up of recognizable contemporary accouterments including snowmobiles, boats, soft drinks, and television sets.
"[9] Crosby’s Feedback at the Contemporary Art Gallery included a focus on the formation of Aboriginal cultural production in urban spaces in Vancouver, B.C., for Native and non-Native publics.
In the text, Crosby makes clear her goal to analyze the current state and recent phenomenon in the arts and social sciences where an embracing of 'difference' is taking place.
As I continued studying the Euro-Canadian interaction with First Nations people, both in the visual arts and in literature, I saw a composite, singular ‘Imaginary Indian’ who functioned as a peripheral but necessary component of Europeans’ history in North America- the negative space of the ‘positive’ force of colonialist hegemony.
Crosby shapes an argument focused on the precautions about western historizing indigenous people as illusory and an inscribing in past cultures a need to be saved through colonization and civilization.
[12] During her four years at university, Crosby studied and researched individuals who supposedly presented positive images of native people including: Paul Kane, Emily Carr, and Bill Reid.
[16] Crosby writes, "At this time, when the struggles of First Nations people for aboriginal rights and self-identity are being widely publicized, it is inappropriate, I think, for an art historian to describe Carr’s remarks as a 'statement of high moral purpose.
In "Construction of the Imaginary Indian" Crosby writes that Paul Kane’s texts and images reflect nineteenth-century philosophical, religious and political views about indigenous peoples.
[17] "Construction of the Imaginary Indian" sheds light on the fact that Kane's’ success depended on the inevitable death of a primitive people and industrial's fascination with such individuals.
Crosby writes, "However, the critical and protesting voices of Linda Nochlin, Heather Dawkins, Edward Said, Terry Goldie, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Marnie Fleming, James Clifford, Virgina Dominguez and many others confirmed the legitimacy of my discomfort at the disparity between what was imagined, written or said, and what was implied [12] In "Manifest Matters", Gerald Vizenor writes, "The postindian warriors hover at last over the ruins of tribal representations and surmount the scriptures of manifest manners with new stories; these warriors counter the surveillance and literature of dominance with their own simulations of survivance.
[24] Included in Wendy Stewart, Audrey Huntley and Fay Blaney's, "The Implication of Restorative Justice for Aboriginal Women" (2001) is a quotation by Marcia Crosby: "I can hardly speak your words because I think you might not forgive me for telling the story you wanted kept a secret.
"[25]This quotation included in "The Implication of Restorative Justice for Aboriginal Women" is reinforcement for how dedicated Crosby is in making works that offers a spirit, honor and resistance.