Museums do, and are, lots of things. One thing a museum does is “representation.” Museums use artifacts (as well as designs, written words, displays, buildings, lighting, sounds and other elements) to create representations.

 

Sometimes we think of museums as places to display artifacts, and we think what we’re looking at is just the artifact – but actually we’re looking at the whole display. We’re looking at the way things are presented to us in a museum. The way something is presented impacts what and how we think about it.

 

This is one of the ways that museums exercise power – they can make their role (the work that curators, archaeologists, anthropologists, conservators, technicians, and designers) seem invisible. They can make it look like they are letting the artifact tell a story, when actually (as Cowessess First Nation member Robert Innes says) artifacts need people to do the storytelling for them.

 

Museums have chosen to represent Indigenous people in lots of different ways over time. Many Indigenous people have struggled with, and commented on the representations that are present in museums.

 

A lot of museum representation of Indigenous people frames them in the past. Putting Indigenous artifacts in display cases suggests that the artifacts are no longer in use, and are old, historic, or traditional. Placing Indigenous people in the past then becomes a “fact” of colonialism, this narrative says “Indigenous people are gone now, and we have a new way of life on this land” – thinking like this becomes an excuse for the status quo, and also lets settler people ignore the impacts of colonialism on Indigenous people, because they supposedly don’t really exist anymore. The subtext of this argument is that “real” Indigenous people are in the past, and living modern Indigenous people are not “real.”

 

The late Joane Cardinal-Schubert was speaking at Glenbow when she remarked to the crowd “You don't know whether we belong here - showing in your museum as artists. After all, Native people have been curiosities for so long.” She felt that is was difficult for museums to understand her work as an artist, rather they always saw her as a representative of her culture. She asked museums to question why Indigenous people are understood in this way, but not other artists. Not seeing Indigenous people as artists is part of keeping them in the past.

 

James Luna (Payómkawichum, Ipi, and Mexican-American) made work as a performance artist that challenged the way museums represent Indigenous people. In one work he puts himself inside a display case and forces visitors to look at him. Doing this reminds museum guests that when they are looking at artifacts, they are looking at living beings; also he it reminding viewers that Indigenous people have not vanished, and are still very much alive today.

 

Multimedia artist Jackson 2bears makes art that shows images of stereotypes of “Indians” he does this to draw attention to the idea that an “Indian” is an invented stereotype, and that is very different from what an Indigenous person ever was, or is today.

 

There are many ways that Indigenous people speak back to, and against the kinds of representation that happens in museums. Many Indigenous people have been advocating for different relationships with museums for a long time.

 

The Spirit Sings

 

One of the biggest examples of this was in Calgary, in 1988 for the Winter Olympics. The Glenbow decided to host an exhibit called “The Spirit Sings” and bring together artifacts from Indigenous cultures from across Canada. Calgary was about to become the world’s stage, and the Museum felt that one of the things that makes Canada so special is Indigenous people, and that’s why they chose to show Indigenous artifacts for the Olympic exhibit. It may be nice that the museum understood the value of Indigenous culture, but many living Indigenous people critiqued the exhibit: they said that unless the museum was consulting with Indigenous people to make the exhibit, they really couldn’t say that they valued Indigenous people, they could only say they valued the past. Also, the museum accepted funding for the exhibit from an oil company that was actively trying to take land from the traditional (unceded) territories of the Lubicon nation. The Museum’s willingness to put displaying artifacts above the rights of living Indigenous people was understood as more evidence that the Museum cared more about the past than it did about modern Indigenous people.

 

From across the country individuals and nations started advocating, they held protests, the AFN made statements, they talked to other museums, and they made their lack of consent for the exhibit clear. They were so effective that many museums refused to loan artifacts to the exhibit. Also, their hard work led to changes across the country: the AFN and the Canadian Museum Association worked together to make new rules for how museums should work with Indigenous people.

 

Today museums have to be more thoughtful about how they represent Indigenous people. They are held to standards by the museum community, as well as by Indigenous people.

 

At Glenbow, the backlash from The Spirit Sings led to the development of close relationships with Blackfoot people, and the creation of a new exhibit. For the exhibit, Blackfoot people made all the major decisions, wrote the publications and programs, and made rules about the ways artifacts would be handled and stored. Although it’s been twenty years, many of their rules are still in place. This work at Glenbow also led to provincial legislation for the repatriation of Blackfoot artifacts from collections. Indigenous people made museums and the government make these changes through effective advocacy.

 

Representation Today

 

In the Bow Valley, there are many museums and heritage sites. Most of them have been though processes to carefully re-think the ways they represent Indigenous people. The McDougall Church site has reframed their work as “reconciliation” (read more here). The Whyte Museum in Banff has been working to engage Indigenous people through programming and staff changes. The Buffalo Nations (Luxton) museum changed its name and was an important participant in Banff’s Bison Treaty. The Glenbow is currently reimagining what their Indigenous collections and displays could look like.

 

This is an important moment for Indigenous people to have a voice, because right now, museums are trying to listen. Previous generations undertook hard work to make museums understand that the ways they represent Indigenous people are flawed, because they come from white and western perspectives. Many museums are now trying to find ways to create change, but they need help to make sure they get this right. There is still much work to be done.