Monthly Archives: May 2012

Drawn Down with MOA on Saturday, June 9th

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Vancouver Draw Down at MOA Saturday June 9, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm

Saturday, June 9, 2012 from 11:00am – 4:00pm
Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia
6393 N.W. Marine Drive, Vancouver BC
FREE with Museum Admission ($14.50-$16.75)

Explore the way in which human and animal forms are depicted in various works of Northwest Coast Aboriginal art, and create your own unique drawings inspired by their distinct use of line, colour and form. Led by art educator Damara Jacobs-Morris, participants will have the opportunity to handle and discuss objects from the museum collection and partake in various drawing activities in this come-and-go workshop. Experience MOA’s awe-inspiring collection in a whole new way!

The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia is world-renowned for its collections, research, teaching, public programs, and community connections. It is one of Canada’s foremost museums, known for

its Northwest Coast collections and collaborative approach to working with First Nations and other cultural communities. It has just completed a major expansion and renewal project—there’s always something new to experience at MOA!

Museum Admission: Adult $16.75, Students & Seniors 65+ $14.50, Children under 6 FREE, Family $44.75. MOA members UBC staff, students, & faculty FREE.
(Prices include HST)

Spend This Sunday With Robert Thurman.

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ROBERT THURMAN

SUNDAY, MAY 27 2:00 PM

UBC FREDERIC WOOD THEATRE

Robert Thurman may have extremely famous children (Uma Thurman) but he is a celebrity in his own right. Coined by The New York Times as “the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism”, Robert is full of valued insight. He is the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University in New York

and the first American to have been ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He has authored and/or coauthored over 20 books on Buddhist philosophy, practice, art and culture. Thurman is a world-wide speaker who is known for being a charming, engaing and enthusiastic. This Sunday should be nothing short of spectacle! You won’t want to miss this opportunity!  

Tickets $16.80 (all ages); MOA members $5.66. Prices include tax.  Ticket price includes  lecture

at Frederic Wood Theatre and admission to the Museum of Anthropology.

Tickets can be purchased at www.moa.ubc.ca/eventtickets or at the door (cash only).

Robert Thurman’s talk is sponsored by the Canadian Society for Asian Arts, in cooperation with MOA, and accompanies the exhibition Visions of Enlightenment: Buddhist Art at MOA on display at MOA through September 30, 2012.

To see a sneak peak of Robert in action, check out this video from one of his talks:http://www.ted.com/talks/bob_thurman_says_we_can_be_buddhas.html
For additional information regarding Robert Thurman you can visit his personal website http://www.bobthurman.com/

National Archival Development Program (NADP) Cuts Felt at MOA

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By Krisztina Laszlo, Archivist

On April 30, 2012 the Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives at the Museum of Anthropology learned that the National Archival Development Program (NADP) has been eliminated as a result of the most recent round of cuts to the heritage sector initiated by the federal government. The elimination of this 1.7 million dollar grant program will have a devastating effect on the ability of archival institutions across the country to engage in the vital work that allows them to preserve and to make accessible their holdings to the public. This funding was not a simple hand-out, but was leveraged by individual institutions with cash and in-kind contributions to complete projects that bring value to all Canadians. The NADP also funded our provincial database of archival holdings, MemoryBC, and enabled provincial and territorial archival councils to provide education, advisory and preservation services to archival institutions at the regional level. With the elimination of NADP funding these services are unlikely to continue.

The Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives has directly benefited from NADP funding. In 2008 we were able to hire a short-term archivist to process and create a finding aid for the Vickie Jensen and Jay Powell fonds. This large set of records includes over 5 metres of textual records, 28,000 photographs and 500 audio recordings which were amassed over three decades of living and working with First Nations communities to help revitalize and preserve indigenous languages. The Jensen and Powell fonds is of vital importance to the cultural heritage of Canada’s First Nations and received a designation of Canadian Cultural Property in 2010 due to its outstanding significance and national importance.

Chief William T. Cranmer's potlatch, 1983

Chief William T. Cranmer's potlatch, 1983, Alert Bay, British Columbia.
Photographer: Vickie Jensen. Vickie Jensen and Jay Powell fonds, a005436c

More recently, the NADP funded a project to digitize a collection of open reel audio recordings, including field recordings from the 1950s and 1960s containing First Nations songs and stories. This collection of recordings also includes lectures and talks by noted Northwest Coast artists such as Bill Reid, Robert Davidson, Roy Vickers and others. With the creation of digital copies, we are able to make our audio recordings accessible to indigenous communities, scholars and the general public. However, this project is about more than just digitizing a specific collection of audio materials, it is also about creating the infrastructure and means to assist indigenous communities to address their own analog holdings. To this end, MOA partnered with the First Nations Technology Council (an Irving K. Barber Learning Centre funded project), who supplied equipment for the NADP project, in exchange for MOA and the Oral History Language Lab developing a tool-kit to assist with digitization at the community level. This important initiative began with seed money from the NADP, but will continue to benefit the preservation of indigenous heritage at the community level.

Xelsilem Rivers, digitization intern

Xelsilem Rivers, digitization intern, working on an NADP funded project
to digitize MOA's open reel audio holdings.

This project also received coverage on CBC’s The National: Xelsilem Rivers and Oral Histories: Saving Languages in 2012

With the loss of the National Archival Development Program the types of project described above will be difficult, if not impossible, to complete in the future. The Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives are devastated by the loss of these funding opportunities, as are

hundreds of other archival institutions across the country. Archives and the documentary heritage they safeguard, are integral to fostering a sense of democracy, in knowing ourselves and keeping traditions, languages and cultures alive.

If Archives are important to you, please consider the following advocacy initiatives:

Indigitization: A Collaborative Project at MOA to Digitize Unique First Nations Content

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In 2011, the Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives at the UBC Museum of Anthropology received funding through the National Archives Development Program to digitize a portion of our archives at risk, including open reel audio tapes that contain unique First Nations content.  This project is about more than just digitizing a specific collection of audio materials, however; it’s about creating the infrastructure and means to assist indigenous communities to address their own analog holdings. To this end, MOA recently  partnered with the First Nations Technology Council, who supplied equipment for the project, in exchange for MOA and the Oral History Language Lab developing a tool-kit to assist with digitization at the community level.

To carry out this work, MOA engaged Xelsilem Rivers, a Squamish/Kwakwaka’wakw artist, writer, activist, blogger, cultural educator, and language enthusiast. Below is the text of a blog Xelsilem wrote about his internship at MOA. For more information on his research, please visit www.SquamishLanguage.com


Indigitization at MOA

By Xelsilem Rivers

I am an indigenous person who is extremely passionate about cultural resurgence in my community, about decolonizing, and reclaiming our old ways. My chosen path has identified my ancestral languages as one of the areas where I can help my people.

I am presented with constant challenges working on language revitalization. The language of my people is considered critically endangered. I have few people that I can regularly go sit with to hear the beauty, rhythm, or “song” of the language. A language is more than a set of grammatical rules – it has a song, a flow, a cadence. It’s the accent and tone. With so few options to hear, or become immersed in my language, the recordings of our elders have become invaluable.

Reel-to-reel technology was once a primary tool for recording First Nations language and oral histories in British Columbia. Now, 60 years after its advent, it has become apparent that this media has a shelf-life – it will someday decay beyond repair. Collections of analog tapes are held by First Nations Communities, organizations and families. If, tapes that may contain the last known recording of a song, or the last unique spoken-word of an endangered language should the reels decay beyond repair this rich cultural content would be lost forever.

Digitization of open reel media from the MOA Archives is the work I have been doing as the Digitization Intern here. Digitization is transferring analog media (things like audio reels or cassettes) to become digital media (like wave or mp3 files). In my work I’ve uncovered recordings of traditional singing by elders, language interviews, and oral histories containing legends and stories. The recordings also includes lectures, interviews and talks with noted anthropologists, artists, and people who had been involved with UBC and MOA (Wayne Suttles, Audrey Hawthorn, Bill Reid, Homer Barnett, etc.)

The MOA Centre for Cultural Research and The First Nations Technology Council received funding from the Irving K. Baker Learning Centre at UBC and the National Archival Development Program to create a “First Nations Digitization Toolkit”. At MOA, we have been developing a portable digitization system for First Nations communities. This system will assist them in preserving and digitizing their own valuable oral histories and language recordings.

Indigenous languages are in a critical state. Numerous academics have worked with elders and community members to document and preserve oral history. These recordings hold the voices of elders who may have been born prior to 1900, and possibly knew people born just after the 18th century. (For most of the British Columbia coast, contact occurred around the 1770’s). Community members, cultural leaders, and other researchers need to have access to the knowledge and history preserved on these recordings.

This project addresses the need to support researchers to access recorded oral histories such as . interviews with elders, language recordings, and traditional songs. These recordings carry valuable information and histories about our ancestors. Through digitization they can be preserved and accessed by researchers and

community members for generations to come. We want to ensure our history and knowledge can be passed on, and we thank our ancestors for the foresight to see the importance in documenting and preserving our rich history and culture.