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Arts & Communication Reconciled futures

required to fulfill all the credentials valued by Western stressed that we do not own the land that we are caring for
academia for such a position. In my curatorial role, I it, and that it is our responsibility to ensure that we leave
work on exhibitions and programs, support collections behind a legacy for those who will be here after we are
management and research, lead repatriation initiatives, gone – our children and their children. When elders share
provide learning opportunities for non-Indigenous staff, teachings about what to look for and where to harvest,
and advise education and other museum departments on they also explain how those choices support other plants
Indigenous matters. or animals in their growth and survival. Our actions are
not done in isolation from those around us, as they have
One of the primary avenues museums engage with
Indigenous communities and artists is by organizing a lasting impact and must therefore be done with good
intentions.
6-8
exhibitions. Museum exhibition projects can serve many
audiences, but most often they are non-Indigenous ones Similarly, when we work with communities to share
— whether they are from the local community or visitors stories or create opportunities for cross-cultural learning,
to our city. In 2022, visits from local schools comprised we must also think about what we give back and how we
40% of overall visitors to the MOV. This was for both self- can support young people in those communities. The
guided and facilitated school programs in our galleries. Tsleil-Waututh Nation so eloquently expresses this idea in
their Stewardship Policy: 1
There are four pillars that guide exhibition and Our Tsleil-Waututh Nation is moving into our
other works at MOV, namely reconciliation (redress future.
and decolonization), urban culture, immigration and Our children and our land are our future.
diversity, and sustainability and environment. In our Our future will bring enough for our children’s
galleries, the story of the City of Vancouver is explored children to thrive.
through one or more of these lenses, all of which can We are looking forward,
also be linked to the province’s revised educational We are ready to meet the next millennium. 9
curriculum and learning objectives. Education programs
are one of the main ways that we sustain the museum, We live in a time of great cultural renewal, and if
which is a non-profit establishment to cares for the City reconciliation is a guiding force for the work that we do
of Vancouver’s collection, providing a third of our annual in museums and other heritage institutions, and then we
revenues. should ensure that our projects are not extractive, but
instead supportive in nature. 10
Other forms of engagement allow us to tailor our efforts
to serve specific communities, age cohorts, or topics. While We have made many changes at the MOV in the last
an exhibition could take years to develop, public programs 6 years: from ensuring that the host nations – MST are
have the potential to be implemented weeks or months represented on our Board of Directors to hiring additional
after their conception. They enable us to demonstrate Indigenous professional staff; partnering with Indigenous
institutional change, in a tangible way, with more artists and communities on new public and school
programs; and continuing to decolonize and reshape
immediacy. At MOV, programming has provided us with the collections through repatriation activity and new
opportunities to show our commitment to reconciliation acquisitions. Among these initiatives, reconciled futures
work in the present moment, whereas exhibitions typically was a very successful pilot project designed to teach urban
take several years to develop.
Indigenous youth the basics of Northwest Coast design
Exhibitions and programs created for general audiences with an emphasis on local Coast Salish art traditions. It
often result in a mediated experience because the audience also provided a chance for participating youth to design a
will impact the way that stories and cultural knowledge are public art project, which was later fabricated and installed
shared by Indigenous knowledge holders. Sometimes, at a Green Infrastructure site in Vancouver. 2
4,5
certain stories may be deemed unsuitable for sharing
outside of the community. In addition, while members 1 Many Indigenous communities in Canada express their
of the same community will share the same worldview, relationships to their traditional lands and waters in terms of
different families will hold some teachings that may be stewardship. This conveys the cultural protocol of preserving
specific to only their family. natural resources for future generations through selective
harvesting, monitoring pollution and water quality, and work
Traditional knowledge is multifaceted, conveying that restores natural habitats and promotes biodiversity.
not only how we as Indigenous people should live with 2 Refer to Green Infrastructure: Yukon and 63 fact sheet
rd
the natural world but with each other. When we harvest, (vancouver.ca) (https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/green-
for example, we do not take everything. It is commonly infrastructure-63 -and-yukon.pdf)
rd

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2024) 2 doi: 10.36922/ac.2488