TO BREATHE LIFE INTO THIS SPACE: OBJECTS WITH LIVES AND AGENCY

Breaking the Glass Case | Megan C. Mahon
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CW: This article contains mention of Canadian residential schools.

If you’re a Museum Studies student, it’s likely you’ve talked a lot about the ways that museums can better serve Indigenous communities, given that so many examples of traditional Indigenous art and cultural materials reside in Canadian institutions. Repatriation of these items – while one of this author’s favourite topics to expound on at length – will wait for another article. With this piece, I’d like to bring your attention to a novel agreement that’s been struck between an Indigenous artist and a certain (rather infamous, but that’s another story we all know) Canadian museum.

The Witness Blanket is a large-scale art installation made from hundreds of items reclaimed from churches, government buildings, and residential schools. The artist, master carver Carey Newman, is Kwakwak’awakw from the Kukwekum, Giiksam, and WaWalaby’ie clans of northern Vancouver Island, and Coast Salish from Cheam of the Sto:lo Nation along the upper Fraser Valley. The Blanket he and his team created stands as a national monument to the atrocities committed in residential schools, and symbolizes the work of ongoing reconciliation. It’s an incredibly moving piece: in addition to pieces from buildings which ran and operated residential schools, it contains personal items from survivors and weaves it all into a giant tapestry of tragedy, resilience, and hope.

The Witness Blanket. Source: The Canadian Museum for Human Rights. https://droitsdelapersonne.ca/histoire/picking-up-the-pieces-the-making-of-the-witness-blanket

The Blanket itself is marvel enough, but what deserves special attention – especially to us Museum Studies students – is the agreement behind its exhibition at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. I see you twitching at the mention of that museum’s name, but I promise we won’t get into that whole sorry debacle here. The story is thus: after the Witness Blanket completed its cross-Canada tour, its creators knew that it needed a permanent home to rest and undergo conservation. However, they did not want to give the Blanket to the CMHR in a way that would imply the piece had one owner. So too, in order to reflect the spirit of truth and reconciliation in which the Blanket was created, they wanted to forge an alliance with the CMHR that did not reflect the traditional power imbalance between museums and Indigenous communities.

The agreement that resulted was unprecedented among museums. In a traditional gathering place on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, stakeholders and museum workers were invited to witness an oral ceremony that made Canadian museum history. For the first time ever, the Crown had ratified a binding legal document through Indigenous ways of knowing. The agreement struck between the CMHR and creators of the Witness Blanket would be put into effect using both written documents and oral agreements, both of which were given equal weight. Carey Newman described this groundbreaking contract as one that lives in two worlds, and joins Western and Indigenous traditions. But to my mind, that isn’t the only incredible part. The contract dictates that the Witness Blanket itself holds its own legal rights – not its creators or the museum where it will reside. This artifact, a physical testimonial to the horrors of residential schools and hope for a better future, has the right to its own story as an independent, living being.

This might sound strange to the majority of us who grew up thinking that museums owned artifacts, which were inanimate objects that were there to teach us about history. I know that’s how I grew up seeing objects in museums. But I think this unprecedented agreement is the first step to seeing artifacts in a different way, one that affords objects more agency. What does this mean for the future of museums?

When I heard about the agreement to treat the Witness Blanket as an object with its own life, I thought of this Robert Smithson quote: “Museums…are graveyards above the ground – congealed memories of the past that act as a pretext for reality.” And while I don’t entirely believe that this is true, I can’t deny that sometimes entering a museum does feel like entering a graveyard - not just because of the artifacts taken out of their contexts and placed behind glass cases, but because of the atmosphere of silence and the idea that we should be treating the space with quiet reverence. Quiet reverence doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but the idea that objects are living things with their own spirits – which many Indigenous cultures on Turtle Island have always known – opens up a whole new pathway of what museums can be.

In the context of this agreement, the Witness Blanket isn’t simply an art piece that commemorates those who never came home from residential schools. It’s a living thing with its own spirit and agency; it isn’t owned by a museum but stands as its own being. What would happen if we treated all museum objects this way? If we treated each artifact as something distinct, with its own life, deeply connected to the lives of those who made and used it?

We would be making museums safer spaces for Indigenous communities – and everyone else! We would be injecting emotional and spiritual care into the sometimes-sterile atmosphere of collections care. And we would be taking an important step down the road to museum reconciliation. If we have the courage to unlearn, a whole new era of interacting with objects is at our fingertips. With the precedent of the Witness Blanket set before us, now is the time to consider just how alive museums can really be.

RESPONSE, REJECTION, RECONCILIATION: EXHIBITING CANADA 150

GREATEST HITS

BY: AMY INTRATOR

Welcome back to the final edition of Greatest Hits 2017! Writing for this column has allowed me to look to the recent past to make sense of developments in the museum world today. With the end of the year quickly approaching, I thought it would be fitting to turn to the very recent past to make sense of the year-long “celebration” that’s about to end: Canada 150.

Official logo for Canada 150. Source. 

The Government of Canada has been planning Canada 150 for years as a celebration of the 150-year anniversary of Canadian confederation. From the very beginning of this project, however, many communities in Canada have rejected this celebratory narrative of Canadian history. The Government of Canada includes reconciliation with Indigenous peoples as one of the themes of Canada 150, but the celebration of Confederation is at odds with most Indigenous peoples’ experience. Indigenous peoples have lived in “Canada” for hundreds of years, so this year marks 150 years of colonial persecution, not nationhood.

Tweet from the artist who designed Colonialism 150 logo, a response to Canada 150. Source.

Where do museums fit into this Canada 150 narrative? Over the past year museums across the country have hosted exhibits that critically reflect on Canada 150. For many curators, artists, and creators, museums have provided a space to stage a counter-narrative and incorporate non-celebratory perspectives on the 150-year anniversary of Confederation. Since there have been so many fantastic exhibits that reflect on Canada 150, for my last Greatest Hits post I have included not one, but three Musings posts, all of which reflect on exhibits that challenge Canada’s sesquicentennial celebration.


Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience 

Miss Chief Eagle Testickle in front of the Fathers of Confederation. The Daddies, Kent Monkman, 2016. Collection of Christine Armstrong and Irfhan Rawji. Photo courtesy of Sadie MacDonald. Source.

In February, Sadie MacDonald reviewed the Art Museum at University of Toronto’s exhibit Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience. The exhibit was on display at the Art Museum from January until March 2017 and is slated to tour museums throughout Canada until 2020. Kent Monkman organized the exhibit, which spanned 300 years and included hundreds of works. I used the word “organized” because Monkman played the role of creator, artist, and curator in this exhibit as several of his own paintings, dioramas, and other pieces were included, but he also put these objects in dialogue with pieces from museums across Canada. I had to visit the exhibit four times to completely take in the exhibit’s objects and text. Sadie’s review of the exhibit immediately picks up on the fact that Monkman organized a narrative that responds to Canada 150 by exploring the Indigenous experience with colonizers that began long before 1867. Even the timeline in the exhibit is a commentary on Canada 150, as Monkman cleverly begins his narrative 150 years before confederation in 1717. Monkman uses the museum as a stage for his narrative that contests Confederation as the beginning of life in Canada.


Jane Ash Poitras: New Acquisitions of Contemporary First Nations Art

Buffalo Seed by Jane Ash Poitras. Photo courtesy of Natania Sherman. Source.

In March, former Musings Editor-in-Chief Natania Sherman reviewed a display at the ROM entitled Jane Ash Poitras: New Acquisitions of Contemporary First Nations Art. Unlike Monkman’s exhibit which spanned centuries and included numerous works, the display Natania reviewed was extremely small in scale. The display included four new acquisitions by the Indigenous artist, Jane Ash Poitras, and while this form of display is common, Natania examined how the works were positioned to stage an anti-colonial dialogue. Poitras paintings feature colonial symbols, like the Hudson’s Bay stripes, in dialogue with symbols of traditional Indigenous knowledge. The paintings themselves were staged next to objects like a school desk and a basket to gather herbs to create a dialogue between the art and the ethnographic objects in the ROM collection. Natania’s thoughtful review of a small exhibit proves that there are many ways to challenge Canada 150 narratives in museums.


Witness Blanket

An unknown boy in from of the Chesterfield Inlet Residential School (top). Photo courtesy of Sadie MacDonald. Source.

For the final exhibit review I’m including in my Canada 150 retrospective, we’re returning to Sadie but leaving Toronto. In June, Sadie reviewed Witness Blanket after visiting the exhibit at Museum London. The exhibit has been touring Canada since 2015, and currently the exhibit is slated to continue touring the country until 2021. The exhibit is composed of 887 artifacts from residential school survivors, which were collected by Carey Newman, a Kwagiulth sculptor and carver. Together, the hundreds of pieces create a patchwork of lost narratives from survivors of the schools, and in the process hundreds of narratives of loss and pain emerge. Sadie’s review examines the power of these objects curated together, both as a way for residential school survivors to heal and remember, but she also examines the power of this exhibit for the non-Indigenous population of Canada. The exhibit may have begun touring two years before Canada 150 celebrations began, but the powerful counter-narratives take on another layer of significance when remembering confederation. 

I tried to provide a brief snapshot of some of the important, challenging, and brave exhibits that have responded to Canada 150. If you have the time please read the amazing reviews of each exhibit! The exhibits take different approaches to staging a counter-narrative in the museum, from a small display of new acquisitions, to creating a dialogue between artifacts and contemporary art, to creating a collage of objects of trauma. These counter-narratives in museums are likely to continue for years to come, especially with many of these exhibits touring years into the future. Museums may help shift the legacy of Canada 150 from a celebration of nationhood to a rejection of colonial glory.

"WHOSE VOICE I HEAR IN THE WINDS": WITNESS BLANKET AT MUSEUM LONDON

EXHIBITION REVIEWS

BY SADIE MACDONALD

Please be advised that this article discusses residential school experiences in Canada and may be disturbing to readers. 

Last week I had the privilege to attend the opening ceremony for Witness Blanket at Museum London. This powerful exhibition created by Carey Newman has been travelling around Canada since 2015, and will be at Museum London until July 9th, 2017. It will continue to tour until 2021. Hopefully at some point during its tour you will have the chance to see it.

Witness Blanket at Museum London. Photo credit: Sadie MacDonald.

Witness Blanket is composed of 887 artifacts that Newman, a Kwagiulth sculptor and carver, collected from residential schools and survivors. From 1870 to 1996, the Government of Canada, in alliance with the Catholic church, took generations of Indigenous children from their families and placed them in residential schools, which were deliberately intended to annihilate their sense of identity through assimilation – to “kill the Indian in the child.” Children were cut off from their families and cultures, and were forced to abandon their languages and traditions. Many were abused horrifically by the school staffs, being beaten, starved, silenced, and sexually assaulted.

As its name would imply, this installation pays witness to residential school experiences and the suffering endured by survivors of that system. Like a patchwork quilt, Witness Blanket is made up of a myriad of objects that tell the story of the schools. One such object is a discarded shoe, covered in fungal growth, that was found on the grounds of Carcross Residential School. Fragments of the buildings abound in the installation, including brickwork, metal bedframes, nails, and a cafeteria fryer. One panel has scraps of carpet from the House of Commons Chamber floor, and along the bottom of the exhibition are old copies of Statutes of Canada. There are photos of students, some named, others unknown. Mixed across multiple sections are squares from a quilted hanging containing prayers and quotes from survivors. The door in the centre of the piece contains gut-wrenching survivor testimony, including an excerpt from Edmund Metatawabin’s Up Ghost River. The other side of the door is covered by a disturbing painting by George Littlechild entitled The Priest and his Prey.

A section of Witness Blanket showing baby moccasins (top panel) and a sugar bowl from the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, ON (bottom panel). Photo courtesy of Sadie MacDonald.

There are no didactic panels directly accompanying Witness Blanket, allowing the viewer the chance to absorb the installation as is. This lack of interpretation may also symbolize the silence of the survivors, whose stories have been overlooked in mainstream Canadian narratives. To find more information about the objects making up Witness Blanket, one can consult a free app which adds incredible layers to the piece. Clicking on individual objects through the app interface brings up further information about that object, such as which school it came from, its context within that school, and personal stories about the object if they are known.

A screencap from the Witness Blanket app. Photo courtesy of Sadie MacDonald

In addition to telling the neglected stories of the children sent to residential schools, Witness Blanket also provides an opportunity for survivors to heal. It is meant to evoke the image of a blanket, an object of comfort and protection. It allows survivors – both those who donated pieces and those who observe the installation – a chance to regain control over their narratives. At the opening ceremony, survivor Vivian Timmins spoke of the powerful moment when she freely walked back and forth through the door situated at the centre of Witness Blanket. It was a freedom never afforded to her at the residential school she attended.

The door in the centre of Witness Blanket, which came from an infirmary in St. Michael's Indian Residential School in Alert Bay, BC. Photo courtesy of Sadie MacDonald

Witness Blanket is also a critical lesson for non-Indigenous viewers. When I stepped through the door to the backside of the installation, I was confronted with its plain wooden backing. As I peeked through the tiny windows, a feeling of being trapped came over me. The depth of suffering that Indigenous children experienced in residential schools is something I can never possibly fathom, but this aspect of the installation allowed me to briefly imagine myself in a child's shoes. Some panels on the front of Witness Blanket had glass over them; when I looked into these, my reflection stared back at me. I was forced to confront myself, to question my complicity in this history and my silence.

As Canada 150 celebrations reign, it is crucial to remember those that the Canadian story has left out. The horrors of residential schools are painful to discuss. Brave survivors such as Vivian Timmins have spoken out about their experiences, but it is up to all Canadians to keep these memories alive, and act. The racist, colonialist sentiments behind residential schools must never be allowed to fester again, and we cannot allow Indigenous people to bear their pain silently. When we speak of “reconciliation,” those of us who are non-Indigenous must do our duty. Reconciliation requires respect for survivors, apologies for the traumas inflicted upon them, establishment of resources for survivors and their families, and a more empathetic understanding of what Indigenous people have suffered in the name of Canadian national identity.

An unknown boy in from of the Chesterfield Inlet Residential School (top). Photo courtesy of Sadie MacDonald

I am a firm believer in the power of history, which can be found in the construction and ownership of its narratives, how those stories are communicated, and what lessons can be drawn from them. The personal and cultural trauma caused by the residential schools can never be erased. However, as many of the speakers at the Witness Blanket ceremony emphasized, there is hope. To keep that hope alive, as the speakers urged those present, we all must share these stories. If we actively work to reconcile and carry the sentiment of projects like Witness Blanket into our cultural endeavours, we can use the lessons of the past to work towards a more just future.

Further educational and community resources regarding residential schools can be found on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission website. Here is a link to more information about the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program, which provides mental health resources to survivors and their families. A 24-hour crisis hotline can be reached at 1-866-925-4419.