Museums | Changing perspectives on Indigenous art

In Victoria, the Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM) has just announced the closure of its Indigenous art floor to take a new, non-colonial look at its collection of First Nations works and artefacts. Press contacted museums in Quebec and Ottawa to gather their reactions on the new way of exhibiting Aboriginal art.

Eric Clement
Press

“No longer talk about, but talk with,” summarizes Stéphane Aquin, director general of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Heavily criticized by Indigenous people in British Columbia, for the pain and violence they felt while visiting it, the Royal British Columbia Museum has decided to adopt “modern museum practices” which will now be done in collaboration with Indigenous communities. . His way of presenting native creations was considered “colonial”.

The President and CEO of the McCord Museum, Suzanne Sauvage, is not surprised by the decision of the RBCM.

With 16,000 Aboriginal objects and artefacts in its collection, the McCord Museum has regular collaborations with Aboriginal people. He was the first, in Quebec, to begin his press conferences by recalling that he is located in “Aboriginal territory not ceded by treaty”. A reminder that is automatically displayed when you open your website.

“Our audiences have changed a lot,” says Suzanne Sauvage. They have become younger, often come from diversity and are more sensitive to social issues. They want the story to be told in a more inclusive and critical way. For a museum, decolonization means giving voice to indigenous and marginalized communities. No longer speak on their behalf. Reconciliation begins with conversation. ”

These exchanges with Indigenous communities have become a tradition at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), which has the largest collection of contemporary Indigenous art in the world. The curator of Indigenous art, Greg A. Hill, of Mohawk descent, has been in office since 2007. The former director general of the Marc Mayer museum was concerned with celebrating Canadian plurality. He changed the name of the Canadian and Indigenous Art Galleries to “Indigenous and Canadian Art Galleries”. First come, first named. It has also ensured the regularity of major contemporary Aboriginal art events.

Sasha Suda, Executive Director of the NGC since 2019, wants to continue this momentum with a firm position on the acquisition of Indigenous art. “You always have to think about the possibility of having to return it to the community it came from,” she says. We have also set up a re-creation program that allows young indigenous artists to recreate works inspired by ancestral techniques in order to prevent them from becoming extinct. It is a more reciprocal way of proceeding with the purchase of indigenous art without negative impact for the communities. ”

Moreover, the NGC does not collect Aboriginal artefacts, but only contemporary works. “Works prior to 1986 were offered to us,” says M^me Suda, who adds that objects considered anthropological and not artistic are the responsibility of history museums.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has also undertaken a reflection on its anthropological artefacts. “We don’t have a lot of them,” says Stéphane Aquin, director general of the MMFA. But there is reason to review our way of considering and presenting them, as we must do for all other cultures. The totem pole by artist Charles Joseph, placed in front of the museum in 2017, is an example. This is a loan from the Kwakiutl Nation. The mast will one day return to the territory of this aboriginal community in British Columbia.

Quebec museums are embracing new approaches. McCord’s latest exhibition, Indigenous voices today, was entirely carried out by Aboriginals. “The objects were chosen by an Indigenous woman, the videos made by an Indigenous company and we are not the ones who speak when we read the texts, it is the Indigenous people who tell their stories,” says Mr.^me Savage. If we really want to say that we decolonize our practices, it is essential. ”

“It must also be said that relations with the Aboriginals in Quebec took place differently from what happened in the West, where the gaze, more distant, was often of the British rule, adds Stéphane Aquin. The MMFA engaged with Indigenous artist Nadia Myre long before the Reconciliation report. ”

Suzanne Sauvage says that we must also share power and authority. The McCord has three Aboriginals on its board, chaired by Ghislain Picard, the chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador. And this museum appointed, in 2020, a curator of Indigenous art, Jonathan Lainey, from the Huron-Wendat nation.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has had a Curator of Inuit Art, Lisa Qiluqqi Koperqualuk, for two years, but does not yet have a Curator of Indigenous Arts. “It’s in the plans,” says Stéphane Aquin.

The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec does not have an Aboriginal or Inuit curator. At the Musée d’art de Joliette (MAJ), very touched by the death of Joyce Echaquan, the Anichinabe director of the Lanaudère Native Friendship Center, Jennifer Brazeau, joined the Board of Directors last May.

“She came to intervene internally,” says MAJ director Jean-François Bélisle, also vice-president of the Association of Canadian Museum Directors. The right to speak is important because it is a power relationship. And it’s starting to pay off. ”

Giving a voice, working together, allows works from different cultures to enter into dialogue. The possibility that some of the Indigenous creations of large museums will only end up in museums run by Indigenous people – such as the Maison amérindienne, created 21 years ago in Mont-Saint-Hilaire by Indigenous people Max Gros Louis, Andrew T Delisle and Paul-Émile Fontaine, or the Musée des Abénakis, in Odanak – does not delight museum directors. But if works have to be turned over, they will do so, they say.

“I often talk to a Native American elder associated with the museum, Albert Dumont, about how to make the museum more inclusive and open,” says Sasha Suda. There is, I believe, a common desire to find ways to work together for our common future. This is what has the most potential in this Canadian territory where so many different cultures live… ”