FEATURE

BY ANY OTHER

Reviewing and Revising Artwork With Outdated Titles

By Dr. India Rael Young

Curator of Art and Images

NAME

In recent years, museums across Canada and the United States have been grappling with legacies of racism within their cataloguing practices. When I first arrived at the museum, just over a year ago, Paintings, Drawings and Prints collection manager Lesley Golding brought to my attention that many artworks in the collection bear outdated and offensive titles. I had just completed a project with Princeton University Art Museum to reimagine how they catalogued Indigenous belongings from the Northwest Coast, and I was eager to tackle similar work here. Revising artwork titles is now one small part of a monumental project to review and revise outdated and outright derogatory terms used in cataloguing at the museum and archives. We’re only in the initial phase, which includes consultation with community partners, reviewing departmental standards and writing policy. With thousands of relevant records from Indigenous Collections, Human

History and the BC Archives, the project will take a few years to unfold.

As we began to prepare for opening of the Emily Carr: Fresh Seeing exhibition, our new project was quickly put to the test. Many of Emily Carr’s representations of Indigenous people and places have been given titles that use outdated and sometimes offensive terms. How can we change our practices before we’ve consulted with communities and written new policy and procedure? Then again, how in 2020 can we continue to use derogatory and outdated terms? If you move through Emily Carr: Fresh Seeing with a keen eye on artworks in Royal BC Museum collections, you may note we’ve made some changes.

Emily Carr, Gamlakyeltxw (Miriam Douse), a Chief of Gitanyow, 1928. Watercolour on paper. PDP00629. This painting, Gamlakyeltxw (Miriam Douse), a Chief of Gitanyow, now on exhibition in the final Carr gallery, provides a glimpse into the process of revising artwork titles that will inform current and future cataloguing practices. We begin by asking ourselves, how can an artwork title provide respect to the people or communities represented? We research what can be known, and we invite relevant parties to shape our research.

The online catalogue record notes that the archives created the title Mrs. Douse, Chieftainess of Kitwancool around 1961. So why do we still use the term Kitwancool? Is “chieftainess” an appropriate term? Can we know Mrs. Douse’s first name? In 1991, hereditary chiefs, including direct descendants of Mrs. Douse, reclaimed their community’s name, Gitanyow.1 Researching on the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs website, I came across a seemingly unrelated document, “Gitanyow Stewardship Guardians: Developing a Framework for Environmental Monitoring and Compliance in the Gitanyow Lax’yip.” Gamlakyeltxw (Miriam Douse) and her daughter, Lisee’iw (Margaret Good), are shown in a photograph from 1910 and represented in the document as guardians of Gitanyow’s laws, rights and lands. The woman in the photographic and sketched portraits could not be more alike. I emailed Gitanyow, and Miranda Marsden, in consultation with today’s Gamlakyeltxw, Wil Marsden, was happy to confirm the identity of Miriam Douse in Carr’s portrait. The new title will be added to the catalogue record as the museum moves through the larger process of revisions. The title may undergo further revisions in future consultations with the Douse family and the hereditary chiefs at Gitanyow.

The BC Archives database returns 140 records that include the term Kitwancool. Each one merits the same care, attention to research and community consultation as Emily Carr’s portrait of Gamlakyeltxw. In this first phase of the project a small cohort of volunteers are working to research 530 other artwork titles that require redress in the Paintings, Drawings and Prints collection. Their work will help the museum determine the scope, resources and paid consultations required to complete the museum-wide project, which will affect thousands of records.

September 18, 2020, was a historic day for the people of British Columbia. The BC government announced that it will construct the new Royal BC Museum Collections and Research Building (CRB) in Colwood at the Royal Bay community development. This announcement comes as the culmination of over 15 years of work by an army of people who are passionate about the Royal BC Museum.

An eight-acre piece of land was of the collections is one of the principal purchased in September for the goals for the museum modernization project, new 14,000-square-metre facility. along with securing a safe environment The new CRB will house the BC for the collections. By Erika Stenson Head of Marketing, Sales and Business Development Archives, provide state-of-the-art collections storage, and include spaces for the Collections and Knowledge departments, Learning programs and community engagement. It will also house more than seven million artifacts! The planned CRB will include a new approach to accessible storage, setting a new standard for the democratization of collections and raising the bar for care, conservation and research. Accessibility will be taken to a whole new level of participation and interactivity in what has Only one per cent of the Royal BC Museum’s traditionally been seen as the sole domain vast collections are currently accessible to of the specialist curator, archivist or the public. Increasing public access to more collection manager. The space will facilitate

Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Lisa Beare, Florence Dick from Songhees Nation, Royal BC Museum board chair Daniel Muzyka and MLA for EsquimaltMetchosin Mitzi Dean stand on the Colwood site where the museum’s new Collections and Research Building will be built.

MODERNIZATION IN ACTION

New Collections and Research Building by 2024

an approach that will encourage visitors to become citizen scientists. Learning access spaces will be programmed for learners to explore aspects of collections, conservation, collections care and research. These spaces will correspond to the different collection categories in adjacent spaces, allowing the public to encounter the mysteries of behindthe-scenes work done by museum staff.

Areas within the CRB will allow for digital engagement and a deeper dive into collections data and research, whether during the visit or later, after the visitor has gone home. The public will also be able to add their own user-generated content; for example, an Indigenous community member could augment collection data with their own stories, photographs or video (see “Repatriation Through Digitization” on page 16). By bringing all the collections disciplines together into a new, purpose-built research facility, we will create an environment for interdisciplinary work to thrive. We are looking forward to inviting community into the building as active co-curators, engaged researchers and knowledge-keepers. This focus will bring a new dynamic to the work of the museum and archives and will create a powerful platform for teams to work alongside communities in developing new contexts for and new understandings of the collections.

This past October, crews began preparing the site for construction with surveying and earthworks. The BC government has also posted a request for qualifications to invite interested parties to communicate their interest in and qualifications for the project. A shortlist of up to three proponents will be invited to participate in the request for proposal stage of the competitive process in 2021 for the facility design and construction.

This is the first phase of the Royal BC Museum Modernization Project. The main museum and public galleries on Belleville Street will remain downtown. We are currently working with the BC government on a plan to redevelop the current museum space downtown and will announce those plans in 2021.

We are excited about what the future holds, and we look forward to sharing more with you, and hearing from you, in the coming months.