In his recent
address to 'The Future of Ethnographic Museums' conference, Wayne Modest
asked what role museums play within the government apparatus of minority
exclusion. He stated that the refusal to acknowledge and articulate racism
within the museum, and within the society that creates and funds the museum, is
a deliberate stance. The absence of voice is an active institutional and political
turning away from certain experiences. Modest was focusing on the colonial
histories of racism attached to the acquisition of ethnographic objects, few of
which are ever displayed within the context of such ongoing histories, but
there are other silences and absences seldom acknowledged in public
representation. One of these—the high numbers of missing and murdered
Indigenous women—is at last being addressed, through a powerful exhibition that
will be displayed across Canada—but not in mainstream museums.
In Canada, it is
estimated that over 600 Aboriginal women have gone missing or have been
murdered in the last 20 years. There are strong calls for a federal government
inquiry into the issue. This is part of a larger pattern of violence against
Aboriginal women, both by outsiders as the result of racism and by Aboriginal men
experiencing pathological effects of colonialism: the effects of internalized racism.
‘Walking With
Our Sisters,’ a project begun by Aboriginal artist Christi Belcourt, has
involved mass public participation in the creation of over 1700 moccasin tops
for display across Canada. The moccasin tops, or vamps, were used historically
by Aboriginal women as a small area for exquisite needlework, to honor the
person wearing the moccasins. Artists who have sent vamps for Walking With Our
Sisters include many Aboriginal people, but also women from all over the world:
Aberdeen, Australia, Israel.
Many of the
vamps are in traditional tribal styles, exquisitely beaded or decorated with
porcupine quills. Others feature angels, angel wings, crosses, tears, names and
dates. Some are in unusual media: birchbark, paper. They are all poignant and
powerful, and honour each missing women--and all of them.
The exhibition
tour ‘sold out’ very rapidly. Intriguingly, the strong list of venues includes
not one big 'mainstream' museum with historic ethnographic collections. Cultural
centres, art galleries, community halls, most located in or near Aboriginal
communities. But not the Canadian Museum of Civilization, not the ROM, not
Glenbow or the Royal Alberta Museum. I can understand why; this about allowing
Aboriginal people to grieve, in part. I wish it had a set of larger,
‘mainstream’ venues, though. It would be a powerful challenge to mainstream
audiences, and to the legacies of colonialism in museums that still operate
today.
It’s a fantastic
exhibition and project, and I urge you to explore the vamps and check the exhibit schedule online at the
Walking With Our Sisters website and Facebook pages.