Museums And The Representation Of Native Canadians

If we were to think about museums as three dimensional maps-as spaces to be divided, defended, and privileged-what would they tell us about the place of Native Canadians within the larger nation? Utilizing a combination of exhibit analysis and interviews, this book explores how Canadian history, anthropology, and art museums have situated Native Canadian history and culture within a larger narrative of nationhood. Until very recently, these museums have, with few exceptions, perpetuated the continued isolation of Native Canadians on the Other side of carefully demarcated boundaries of time, space, and culture. Despite a living and highly politicized presence outside their walls, inside these museums Native Canadians have remained fixed and isolated in time and space. This book discusses how this particular image of Native Canadians has been translated into the numerous dichotomies and borders of the museum; between modern and traditional, past and present, myth and science, progress and stasis, active and passive, and, ultimately, us and them. However, in tribal museums and more recent programming at the larger museums we are able to identify alternative maps that realign these borders and give voice to alternative constructions of these histories. The past decade has seen enormous change in how museum curators, educators, and directors imagine their role in these museums and, more particularly, in the construction of a history of Native Canadians. This book considers how museums, and those who work within them, have responded to the challenge of writing a more complex and multivocal history for the nation. (Ph.D. dissertation, the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1992; revised with new preface, bibliography, and index)

This book provides a glimpse of thirteenth-century life and death in a southern Ontario Iroquoian community. The renovation of a Toronto soccer field in 1997 resulted in the accidental discovery of an Iroquoian ossuary--a large pit containing the remains of at least 87 people. The pit was excavated and recorded, and the remains reburied in accordance with the wishes of the Six Nations Council of Oshweken. Scientific analyses of the bones resulted in a remarkably detailed demographic profile of the Moatfield people, along with indicators of their health and diet. The book reports these findings and includes a complete database of maps and profiles on an accompanying CD-ROM. Ronald F. Williamson is president of Archaeological Services Inc., Toronto. Susan Pfeiffer is professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto.

The ways in which Aboriginal people and museums work together have changed drastically in recent decades. This historic process of decolonization, including distinctive attempts to institutionalize multiculturalism, has pushed Canadian museums to pioneer new practices that can accommodate both difference and inclusivity. Ruth Phillips argues that these practices are "indigenous" not only because they originate in Aboriginal activism but because they draw on a distinctively Canadian preference for compromise and tolerance for ambiguity. Phillips dissects seminal exhibitions of Indigenous art to show how changes in display, curatorial voice, and authority stem from broad social, economic, and political forces outside the museum and moves beyond Canadian institutions and practices to discuss historically interrelated developments and exhibitions in the United States, Britain, Australia, and elsewhere. Drawing on forty years of experience as an art historian, curator, exhibition critic, and museum director, she emphasizes the complex and situated nature of the problems that face museums, introducing new perspectives on controversial exhibitions and moments of contestation. A manifesto that calls on us to re-imagine the museum as a place to embrace global interconnectedness, Museum Pieces emphasizes the transformative power of museum controversy and analyses shifting ideas about art, authenticity, and power in the modern museum.

In recognizing the established intellectual and institutional authority of Aboriginal artists, curators, and academics working in cultural institutions and universities, this volume serves as an important primer on key questions and issues accompanying the changing representational practices of the community cultural center, the public art gallery and the anthropological museum.

Moving the Museum documents the reopening of the J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous & Canadian Art with a renewed focus on the AGO's Indigenous art collection. The volume reflects the nation-to-nation treaty relationship that is the foundation of Canada, asking questions, discovering truths, and leading conversations that address the weight of history. Lavishly illustrated with more than 100 reproductions, Moving the Museum: Indigenous and Canadian Art at the AGO features the work of First Nations artists -- including Carl Beam, Rebecca Belmore, and Kent Monkman -- along with work by Inuit artists like Shuvinai Ashoona and Annie Pootoogook. Canadian artists include Lawren Harris, Kazuo Nakamura, Joyce Wieland, and many others. Drawing from stories about our origins and identities, the featured artists and essayists invite readers to engage with issues of land, water, transformation, and sovereignty and to contemplate the historic representation of Indigenous and Canadian art in museums.

Drawing upon material from Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, Making Representations explores the ways in which museums and anthropologists are responding to pressures in the field by developing new policies and practices, and forging new relationships with communities. Simpson examines the increasing number of museums and cultural centres being established by indigenous and immigrant communities as they take control of the interpretive process and challenge the traditional role of the museum. Museum studies students and museum professionals will all find this a stimulating and valuable read.

Museums--along with books, newspapers, and Wild West shows in the 19th century, movies and television in the 20th--have shaped our perceptions of American Indians. This book brings together six prominent museum professionals--Native and non-Native--to examine the ways in which Indians and their cultures have been represented by museums in North America and to present new directions museums are already taking. Traditional museum exhibitions of Native American art and culture often represented only the past, ignoring the living Native voice. Today, museums have begun to incorporate Native perspectives in their displays. Even more dramatic is the growth in the number of Indian-run museums. These essays explore the relationships being forged between museums and Native communities to create new techniques for presenting Native American culture. This publication will serve to stimulate the discussions and analyses that can lead to new partnerships and collaborations.