|
Sourcebooks tell our own stories in a way that is both understandable to the museum public and respectful of First Nations people. Sourcebooks were first suggested as an interactive medium between First Nations and the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) by the Director, Dr. Michael Ames. This was in response to criticism by First Nations that museums were presenting First Nations culture as though it is static, dying or no longer existing.
As an undergraduate student, and while I was in the M.A. programme at UBC, I worked with Bill McLennan, the Designer at MOA for five years on the sourcebook concept. Now as a curator, the sourcebook concept continues its development as an interactive medium between First Nations and MOA.
Sourcebooks combine text taken from oral testimony, library research, contemporary and archival photographs, illustrations and maps to "tell a story." Through the use of a minimum amount of explanatory text, they profile people, organizations, events or processes in the form of an exhibit-book. They are particularly feasible for smaller museums and First Nations cultural centres, because of their "low-tech, low-cost" design.
Presently there are nineteen sourcebooks on display in the Great Hall. They include: a record of the process of the creation of Bill Reid's - The Raven and the First Men, Archival Photographs of the Coast Salish and Haida, The Northwest Coast Potlatch, The Klix'ken House of Quattishe, The Honour Of One Is The Honour Of All, From Bush Life To Urban Living: A Profile of Max Deranger, A Catalogue of Objects in the Great Hall and The Native Youth Programme.
|
A recent addition to the Great Hall collection is a sourcebook profiling the Namgis artist, Doug Cranmer. The sourcebook entitled Whittling for a Living, was written by a M.F.A. graduate, Eden Robinson - Haisla/Heiltsuk Nation, and developed in co-ordination with the artist while he was in residence at MOA in the summer of 1994. Whittling for a Living documents Doug Cranmer's colourful personality and ambitious artistic output, from 1958 when he joined Bill Reid in the construction of the Haida Houses and totem poles at MOA through his creation of carved panels for the B.C. Pavilion door at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, to his experimentation with computer and abstract designs during his MOA residency in 1994.
The sourcebook medium allows for the colour and personality of individual artists like Doug Cranmer to emerge where other forms of exhibition may not. Sourcebooks counterbalance the tables and statistics of conventional academic studies with images of real people. And this is the success of sourcebooks as a medium, they reach beyond the academic community to a wider audience, unlike conventional academic studies which are generally accessible to the public but not widely read. But sourcebooks have been specifically designed to allow people to speak for themselves thereby putting a human face on First Nations people.
|
The apparent non-academic approach to sourcebooks is not without substance or regard for scholarly rigor, however. In fact, a critical aspect of sourcebook production is ensuring formal consent from individuals, organization or institutions profiled. Consistent with current concerns surrounding cultural appropriation and partnerships with First Nations peoples, sourcebooks endeavor to attend to issues of First Nations consent and copyright in ways that are both accessible to and respectful of First Nations individuals and communities.
As seen on MOA's web site, we are also in the process of working with a new medium to give the general public a better understanding of the lives of First Nations. Some of the sourcebooks on display in the Great Hall can be seen on the home page of the Museum of Anthropology. The real benefit of this medium is that the sourcebooks will reach a wider audience while allowing First Nations to speak for themselves.
|
