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Shaping collaboration: Considering
institutional culture
Julia Harrison*
Anthropology, Trent University, Peterborough, Ont., Canada K9J 7B8
Received 21 February 2005; accepted 24 March 2005
Abstract
Laura Peers and Alison Brown in their recent book, Museums and Source Communities, suggest
that collaborative relationships established between museums and source communities are
contingent on three things: the nature of the source community; the political relationship between
the source community and the museum; and the geographical proximity of museums to these
communities (2003: 3). In this paper, I add another factor to these three: the unique culture of the
individual museum. It draws on research I did on collaborative projects undertaken by the Calgary’s
Glenbow Museum and the Blackfoot peoples in southern Alberta and Montana, and the Royal British
Columbia Museum in Victoria, BC and the Nuu-chah-nulth people of the West Coast of Vancouver
Island.
q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Collaboration; Institutional culture; Glenbow Museum; Royal British Columbia Museum; Blackfoot;
Nuu-chah-nulth
In the latter decades the of last century and certainly as the 21st century unfolds, the
moral responsibility of museums to work in collaboration with those whose material
history they hold in their collections is, for many, unquestioned. For some, it is an
established practice, although the intensity and complexity of the institutional engagement
with what Peers and Brown (2003) call ‘source communities’ (and the interest academics
have in writing about it) has been heightened in recent years. It is all too clear from its
practice, and the literature being generated about it, that what it means to work
Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212
www.elsevier.com/locate/musmancur
0260-4779/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.musmancur.2005.03.003
* Tel.: C1 705 748 1011.
E-mail address: [email protected].
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212196
collaboratively is not something that can be reduced to a formula. Many have written
about the process complexities, its successes and to a lesser degree, its failures (see Ames,
1992; Conaty, 2003; Kahn, 2000; Peers & Brown, 2003). These authors track the
intricacies of moving the notion of collaboration from what in one context the Oxford
English Dictionary identifies as ‘traitorous cooperation with the enemy’, to something
experienced as ‘united labour [and] cooperation.’1 This shift is part of a larger movement
in museums to liberate culture from what Kreps (2003: 5) calls ‘the hegemony of the
management regimes of Eurocentric museology’.
Laura Peers and Alison Brown in their recent book, Museums and Source Communities,
suggest that collaborative relationships established between museums and source
communities are contingent on three things: the nature [culture?] of the source
community; the political relationship between the source community and the museum;
and the geographical proximity of museums to these communities (2003: 3). I want to add
another factor to these three: the unique culture of the individual museum. In this paper,
draws on research I did on collaborative projects undertaken by the Calgary’s Glenbow
Museum and the Blackfoot peoples in southern Alberta and Montana, and the Royal
British Columbia Museum (RBCM) in Victoria, BC and the Nuu-chah-nulth people of the
West Coast of Vancouver Island.2
The museum as both an institution and a collective of individuals is frequently
essentialized as a homogenous entity, having a somewhat generic character. All museums,
it is true, emerged from a common historical trajectory (see for example Ames, 1992;
Bennett, 1995; Key, 1976; Stocking, 1985), and those who wrote about their collaborative
experiences in the 1990s recognized one commonality in the institutional presence of the
museum. Ames (1994), Jonaitis & Inglis (1992), Kahn (2000) highlighted the uneven
power relations that are driven by a ‘history that cannot be denied’ (Kahn, 2000: 72). This
history is symbolized by the imbalanced relationship between museums and those with
whom they now seek to collaborate, the latter having known discrimination, oppression,
and marginalization in their engagement with the Western world, the context from which
the institution we now call the museum emerged. These writers cautioned that
‘[c]urators. should not deceive themselves about achieving equal partnerships’ (Kahn
quoting Jonaitis and Inglis 2000: 72). Those who worked on the two collaborative projects
I discuss here worked with great diligence—and I might add achieved very positive
results—to ameliorate aspects of the tensions resulting from this problematic history, but
the point remains that it continues to be problematic. Is it possible for museums to really
ever escape the ‘distance, difference and opposition’ of the exhibition, which implicitly
1 See http://cat1.lib.trentu.ca:2162/. Last visited December 29, 2004.2 The Nitsitapii or Blackfoot people, are one of the largest First Nations communities in Canada. They have
inhabited the northwestern plains of North America for thousands of years. The traditional territory of the
Blackfoot extends from the North Saskatchewan River to the Yellowstone River, and from the eastern slopes of
the Rocky Mountains to the Sand Hills of western Saskatchewan. The four Nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy
are: Siksika, Kainai, and Peigan in Alberta; and Blackfeet in Montana (The Blackfoot Gallery Committee, 2001).
The Nuu-chah-nulth, whose name can be translated as ‘along the mountains’ were formerly known to outside
world as the Nootka. Their territory is on the West Coast of Vancouver Island stretching from Brooks Peninsula
north of Kyuquot to Sheringham Point south of Port Renfrew. See http://www.amerimumi.org/nations/en/
canada_tv.htm or http://www.nuuchahnulth.org for more details.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212 197
assumes the Western view of the world as superior to others (Preziosi & Farago 2004:
229)? Even a world imagined as a post-colonial one, a term as Thomas King (2003)
reminds us, ironically presumes the ubiquitousness of the influence of Western colonial
empires of the last 500 years—a condition many would argue still remains, particularly in
relation to First Nations in Canada. However, a promising future was charted for the
Glenbow and the RBCM and their relationships with local Native people, respectively, in
southern Alberta and on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Elsewhere, I have discussed
other aspects of these projects, including the relationships they generated, the resultant
exhibitions, and the use made of the for they created (Harrison et al. n.d.; see also Conaty,
2003 for a detailed discussion of Nitsitapiisinni; Hoover 2000; Black, 2001 for
HuupuKwanum/Tupaat). I argue that these things were not only about the complexities
of power relations and resistance, following Witcomb (2003: 26), who has argued that
museums have always been about much more than that.
Accepting this claim, and its corollary that meaning making in museums is a very
complicated and variable process, suggests that all museums should not be seen as
homogenous entities, just because they share the same historical trajectory, colonial
burden, and in recent decades, a new professional mandate (Witcomb, 2003: 26). As the
extensive literature on organizational culture in the corporate world indicates, and anyone
who has worked in any institutional setting can testify, organizations (even those with
parallel mandates) express their own unique identity, as evidenced in such things as their
institutional norms, values, and practices. As each source community is seen to have its
own character, something which in anthropological terms could be glossed under the
notion of cultural traditions, practices, or simply its way of being in the world, so do
institutions such as museums. What has been written about the museum in the discussion
of collaboration makes at most an institutional distinction between a gallery, an institution
concerned largely with the exhibition and collection of art; and a museum, an institution
traditionally concerned with the exhibition and collection of historical and ethnographic
collections.3 When I speak of museums here, I am referring to the institutions in this latter
category.
Museum professionals, as current Glenbow’s Chief Executive Officer suggested, are
one group who see their place of employment as a place ‘where their [personal] values can
find expression,’ implying that their individual ideologies resonate with that of their place
of employment, and vice versa.4 This coherence is repeated in the fundamental
assumptions of the collaborative process: the melding of the voice of individuals into
that of a larger collective, as it is shaped by institutional history, organizational structure,
physical location, current circumstance, and legacy of leadership. These factors make its
character as distinctive as ‘the nature of the source community’ (Peers & Brown, 2003: 3).
It is important to note that in contradiction to some of the rhetoric about managing
corporate culture, the latter is not something that can be changed, or even replaced by
3 Galleries have a much longer legacy of working closely with the artists whose work they exhibit. I would not,
however, want to idealize these relationships as fully collaborative as traditionally the curatorial voice reigned as
the final authority on how art works would be mounted in an exhibition, even after consultation with the artists
concerned.4 Interview with Michael Robinson, April, 2003.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212198
directives from senior management (see Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Peters & Waterman,
1982; Schein, 1985; Smircich, 1983).5 My usage of the idea of institutional culture I take
from the contemporary anthropological usage of the concept: culture is something organic,
fragmented, ambiguous, if not contradictory. While it must also be seen to be something
dynamic, it is not something to be revolutionized over a short-time period; any
fundamental change will likely be much more incremental, implicitly consensual, and
sporadic, rather than directed. Fundamental to this is the recognition that in most cases
core values will change only very slowly over extended periods of time.
A place that might be expected to particularly exemplify this glacial pace is the
museum, institutions at their core engaged in a project of documenting and preserving
what has been part of history. Those who work in them value an understanding of what has
been, embracing it as something that might positively influence what might be. Glenbow’s
CEO observed in his conversation with me that ‘museums are resistant in large measure to
change.’6 Assuming that this is true, museum cultures can be expected to maintain a
recognizable coherency through time, despite personnel changes and organizational
restructuring. As space does not allow for a comprehensive analysis of the institutional
cultures of the Glenbow and the RBCM, I limit my comments below to how selected
dimensions of the institutional cultures of these two museums could be seen to have
informed the collaborative processes which unfolded in the production of two major
exhibitions. My discussion of the Glenbow builds on a premise which I have elaborated
elsewhere: museums need to be seen firmly situated in the particular cultural milieu in
which they developed, and thus to take on the character of some of that place (Harrison,
1993a). In my discussion of the RBCM, I posit that parallels at a structural level between
institutional culture and that of the source community fostered a certain empathetic
resonance as to how the collaborative process ought to proceed. It is important to note that
the contextual analysis I offer for the Glenbow, and the structural one I offer for the
RBCM, could have been argued in reverse. That is, the context of the RBCM influenced
the character of the collaborative process which unfolded in that institution, just as the
structure of the Glenbow influenced the process there. My point is simply to exemplify the
connection between institutional culture and the collaborative process. The dimensions of
institutional culture I have highlighted for each institution are somewhat arbitrary.7
Before proceeding to discuss the two case studies, I want to note how the collaborative
process was viewed by staff at both institutions and by the Native people involved. I
interviewed a wide range of people involved with both projects. Overwhelmingly,
the comments on the experience were very positive. I was told by these Blackfoot and
Nuu-chah-nulth individuals that the museum staff really did listen and heard what they had
5 These references represent four of the classic sources on the idea of organizational culture. Twenty years after
their original publication, there is now a large body of literature on this subject. The debate continues as to the
usefulness of the concept for corporate management (Lewis, 2000), but regardless of these discussions, it is well
recognized by anthropologists that corporations and other parallel institutions have distinctive cultures.6 Interview with Michael Robinson, April 2003.7 I am not suggesting that models other than those I identify here would not be able to accomplish similar
projects. There is much scope for other comparative work here with other institutional structures and
collaborative projects.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212 199
to say. There was a sense that the knowledge, expertise and wisdom from both the museum
professionals and the Native communities were essential to making the final product what
it was. There was a real consensus that the collaboration had worked. Nobody claimed the
process was without some room for improvement, but all agreed that it had been a positive
and constructive learning experience, that real friendships had been established, all of
which held much promise for the future. What was produced was seen to be the product of
the shared visions and energies of all of those involved. As a result, the exhibitions were
seen by those involved in their development as decidedly different from others that had
ever been produced by either institution in the past.8
1. Producing Nitsitapiisinni
In November 2001, Nitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life opened at the Glenbow
Museum in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The exhibition project had its beginning in 1998,
when Glenbow ‘invited 17 Blackfoot elders to work with [it] in developing an exhibit
that would reflect their culture and history as they know it’ (Conaty, 2003: 231). The
focus on the Blackfoot peoples seemed most fitting, since the museum sits on their
traditional lands, the Blackfoot collections are some of the museum’s largest and most
comprehensive, and the museum had a longstanding relationship with these people.9 In
addition, issues of limited space did not allow for in-depth study of more than one
group. Senior Ethnology Curator Gerry Conaty intended ‘by exploring one culture in
depth. to illuminate the complexity of all First Nations cultures.’10 This project was
what the museum saw as ‘a new kind of relationship with First Nations.’ The latter was
initiated by the museum in 1990, when new practices for the loan and repatriation of
materials were put in place, a Native Advisory Council was formed to advise on First
Nations-related issues at the museum, a Treaty Seven (the treaty signed in 1877 by the
Blackfoot confederacy and the Crown) liaison position was created, and educational
programming began to be delivered by First Nations staff (Conaty, 2003: 230; Conaty
& Janes, 1997). The Blackfoot team of teachers and ceremonialists agreed to take on
the project, as they saw it as ‘an opportunity to develop an educational place where
future generations of Blackfoot youth can learn the fundamentals of their own culture’
(Conaty, 2003: 231).
Nitsitapiisinni occupies 8000 square feet on the museum’s third floor and is designed to
be a long-term installation. The total budget for the project was just under two million
dollars, a significant portion of which came from provincial government grants and special
project monies ($1.5 million), approximately $50,000 from the federal government,
$250,000 from Shell Canada Ltd., and the balance from private and foundation support
(Conaty, 2003: 238). It begins with an introduction to the Blackfoot world view, moves into
a clan camp which extends into a gallery designed to capture the expansiveness of the prairie
8 See Krmpotich, 2004 for a discussion of whether some visitors to Nitsitapiisinni saw it the same way.9 Email from Gerry Conaty, December, 30, 2004.
10 Email from Gerry Conaty, December 30, 2004.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212200
and the historic role of the buffalo in Blackfoot life. The dramatic impact of Europeans, the
imposition of treaties, the difficulties of life confined to reserves (and for the Blackfeet of
Montana, reservations)11, the inappropriateness of much government policy, the attempt to
eradicate cultural expression in residential schools, and the shift to ranching, rodeos, and
involvement in the Calgary Stampede constitute the central core of the exhibit. The
challenges, hopes, successes and prospects for the future of the Blackfoot in the world of the
21st century is the story of the final gallery.12 The Blackfoot team determined the content of
the gallery, selected the artifacts, had final say in the label copy, the graphic and exhibit
design, the visuals, the video and audio clips used, the marketing and promotional packages,
and had significant input into the development of educational programming.
Gerry Conaty described the five year process as ‘lengthy but not arduous’ (2003: 231).
Beth Carter, the Project Manager for Nitsitapiisinni, observed that the length of time it
took for the project to come to fruition was a good thing, as it allowed trust to develop
among the team members.13 The process began by Glenbow sponsoring an all night
ceremony to remove obstacles and set everything off on the right foot. This sponsorship
and participation showed, according to Frank Weaselhead, a Blackfoot team member,
Glenbow’s ‘commitment to continuing the project in a Blackfoot way.’14 The museum
staff willingly acted as facilitators to bring the Blackfoot team’s vision of the exhibit into
reality. Conaty would argue that the project was driven at Glenbow by the personal
commitment of himself, Carter and CEO at the time, Robert Janes. When Janes left in
2000, his successor Mike Robinson, who himself had worked collaboratively with
Aboriginal people in northern Canada, maintained this executive support.15 While these
three or four Glenbow staff were central to the project, other staff became very involved in
the project, putting in countless hours of personal time to attend meetings and Blackfoot
ceremonial and community events. The process left those involved with the sense that it
was a true partnership. The Blackfoot really felt that Nitsitapiisinni told their story from
their point of view, a first for a museum exhibition.
2. The Glenbow institutional context
There is much in the process of the production of Nitsitapiisinni that was new for Glenbow.
The full relinquishing to the Blackfoot team offinal authority over the content, the design, and
the character of the exhibition; the fully participatory developmental process—something
which Mike Robinson paralleled to the Participatory Action Research model; the
significant amount of time (nearly 5 years) and resources committed for project
development by the institution; and the investment by many staff of large amounts
of personal time, are just some of the elements that made the project work, and that
11 The Blackfoot are called the Blackfeet in the United States.12 See Conaty, 2003 for a more detailed description of the gallery content, design and representation techniques.13 Interview with Beth Carter, April 2003.14 Interview with Frank Weaselhead, April 2003.15 Email from Gerry Conaty, December 30, 2004.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212 201
made it unique.16 Nitsitapiisinni was the largest, but certainly not the only, collaborative
project initiated by Glenbow in the decade following the release of the 1992 Task Force report,
Turning the Page, a document which laid out the desirable terms of the engagement between
First Nations and Canadian museums (Nicks & Hill, 1992). The Glenbow had truly been a
leader in responding to this document. Taking the initiative to collaborate in a way that had not
quite been done before, however, was somehow fitting for the institution.
Glenbow’s roots lay in the vision of lawyer-cum-oilman, Eric Harvie, who took the
20th century philanthropy and the collecting of art, history and ethnographic objects to
heights unparalleled in Western Canada, if not the whole country. Calgary was fortunate to
have been a major benefactor of the collecting passion of Harvie, who moved to the city
from Toronto in 1911. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, he built over the next 30 years a
huge collection which included an impressive range of art works, ethnographic and
historic objects, military objects, archival documents, rare books and maps, and gems and
minerals (Dempsey, 1991). In 1995, the Glenbow listed its permanent collections as
totaling 1.2 million objects, a substantial portion of which came in the original Harvie gift
(Janes, 1995: 16). As a gesture to mark the nation’s 1967 Centennial, he donated his
collections to the province of Alberta, making it the largest gift in the history of Canadian
philanthropy.17 Having received a commitment that the government would build the
museum the ever-expanding collections deserved, Harvie gave an endowment to the
museum of $5 million, a figure matched by the province at the time of the transfer. Any
ongoing support needed by the museum was to be negotiated with the government as
needed in the future, and the original agreement did not imply a firm commitment that the
Glenbow would be funded in perpetuity—something that was made obvious to museum
administration in the early 1990s. I will return to this point at the end of the paper. Up to
the mid-1970s, a small portion of the collections had been previously exhibited in an array
of heritage buildings which Harvie owned around the city. A proper museum facility
(attached to the Calgary’s new Convention Centre) opened in 1974 in the heart of the
downtown. The museum retained the name, Glenbow, originally taken from the name of
quarry on what became the Harvie ranch on the Bow River, west of Calgary.18
Calgary, a cattle and oil city, had expanded and prospered significantly in the post-WWII
era, emerging as a ‘have’, as opposed to a ‘have-not’, western Canadian province. Some
would have argued in the 1970s that the burgeoning city needed this new museum to counter
its lack of a ‘cultural’ life. A rather tiresome joke that reverberated around the city in the 1970s
and 1980s, assumed by Calgarians to be told by ‘Easteners’, i.e. those from Ontario, sums up
these outsiders’ perception of what the city lacked. It went as follows:
16 Inte17 Em18 Em
Question: What is difference between Calgary and yogurt?
Answer: Yogurt has culture.
While outsiders might have seen (and maybe still do see) the city as
lacking sophistication, Calgarians have little doubt about their city’s cultural richness
rview with Michael Robinson, April 2003.
ail Gerry Conaty, December 30, 2004.
ail Mike Robinson, January, 2005.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212202
and integrity, no matter if one is talking about ‘Culture’ (as in aesthetic culture) or
‘culture’ (how life is lived).’19 The city is distinctive for its readily identifiable ‘distinctive
community spirit’, as something proudly rooted ‘in the myths of the western frontier’
(Seiler & Seiler, 2001: 29; Smith & Klassen, 1994). The city exudes a sense that it is
unfettered by the shackles of history and tradition. It is a place where an individual can try
something new, ignoring any warning that it might have been tried elsewhere, and failed.
There is no reason to believe that Calgarians would not put their own stamp on a project,
and meet with success rather than failure. Whether it is the boom/bust cycle of the oil
industry; or the parched prairie landscape rolling out from the magnificent Rocky
Mountain backdrop; or the spectacular Chinook arches which frame the city’s horizon
bringing dramatic and sudden weather changes—there is something in the city that fosters
the sense that in taking risks an individual can only gain (Gibbins & Hiller, 1994: 66).
There is a tension, however, between these notions and the political conservatism that
embeds public life in Alberta. The province has a long history of favoring conservative
politics, both federally and provincially (Friesen 1994: 24; Gibbins & Arrison, 1995: 16;
Tupper & Gibbins, 1992).
Eric Harvie’s collecting activities exemplify this Calgary spirit. He collected Western
Canadian art (also known as ‘Cowboy art’) and history objects at a time when few others
were interested. While similar collections form the basis of many museums in the Western
world, few were put together so deliberately, in so short a time, and so late in the 20th
century. Many would have assumed that it was impossible to put together such a collection
in such a timeframe. In true Calgary spirit, such thoughts likely never crossed Harvie’s
mind. He exhibited what some would call the ‘maverick’ spirit of Calgary. His intense
personal engagement in his collecting project epitomized the belief that the individual is
central to making something successful, but that one has an obligation to give back to
one’s community. It was said of him in his obituary in the Calgary Herald, ‘He created
immense wealth and gave it all back’ (as quoted in Dempsey, 1991: 21). Harvie would
have approved of the statistic that Calgary boasted in the 1980s and 1990s of having ‘the
highest rate of volunteerism among Canada’s major cities’ (Gibbins & Hiller, 1994: 65)—
all this in a conservative city that champions the value of individual accomplishment. This
can be read to mean that it is up to each individual to make their community what they
want it to be. I will return to this point below.
The Glenbow, while receiving part of its initial endowment from the province and a
modest operating grant throughout much of the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, was (and is)
afforded ‘a great deal of autonomy from the intricacies of government’ (Janes, 1995:
16–17). It operates under the direction of a Chief Executive Officer and President
(formerly called the Director) and a Board of Governors. At the time the Nitsitapiisinni
project began, the Board had representation from the provincial government, the city of
Calgary, the Harvie family, and the wider Canadian public.20 Such a structure made it
19 See Gill (2004) for a discussion of the vibrancy of the Cultural scene in Calgary in the early years of the 21st
century. It is now something the ‘Easteners’ would have more trouble disparaging.20 By 2004 the Board composition had changed. It is now elected by the Glenbow Museum membership from a
slate of candidate vetted by the Nominations Committee of the Board prior to the vote. Two seats can be reserved
for representatives of the Harvie family. Email Gerry Conaty, December 30, 2004.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212 203
somewhat distinctive in the Canadian museum community, and in the words of a former
director, is something envied by other Canadian museums, ‘which are dominated by one
level of government or another’ (Janes, 1995: 17). The multi-disciplinary mix of its
collections—art, ethnology, historical and archival but not natural history—also make it
unique in the Canadian cultural landscape.21
In the late 1970s and through the 1980s, under the directorship of Duncan Cameron,
Glenbow furthered its reputation as a unique institution, but this time not because of its
eccentric origins, but rather as a powerhouse of the Canadian cultural landscape located in
a place where many would not expect to find it. Cameron worked to accomplish this by
raising the professional standards and reputation of the museum, so much so that he was
able during his tenure to negotiate several blockbuster exhibitions with Glenbow as their
only Canadian venue. Glenbow also initiated several major exhibitions of its own, unlike
any undertaken by any museum elsewhere in the country. The most notable example of
this was The Spirit Sings: Artistic Traditions of Canada’s First Peoples in 1988 (Ames,
1988; Ames & Trigger, 1988; Goddard, 1991; Harrison, 1988, 1993b; Harrison et al.
1987a,b; Trigger, 1988). It was this undertaking which endeavored to bring back for
exhibition many of the early pieces of Native heritage that had left during the colonial
period in Canada. The project sparked a controversy which led to the generation of the
Turning the Page Task Force Report (Nicks & Hill, 1992). The taking of bold initiatives
continued under the leadership of Robert Janes, who succeeded Cameron. Under his
directorship, several ceremonial bundles were returned to various Aboriginal groups and a
major innovative institutional reorganization was undertaken—changes I will return to at
the end of this paper.
This much abbreviated history of the Glenbow could be read simply as heralding of its
accomplishments. But this is not my intention. As the quotes above from Mike Robinson,
the current Glenbow CEO and President imply, museums are not necessarily places
populated with risk takers. Rather, he suggests that they are filled with people who resist
change.22 What these comments fail to reflect, however, is the historical precedent of
Glenbow’s willingness to try new things, and to do things in ways that they might not have
been done before. While some elements of the Nitsitapiisinni project echo earlier
undertakings at Glenbow—the Native advisory committees and the loan of materials for
ceremonial use, for example—there is a radical difference in degree and legitimacy given
to such things in the post-Task Force era. It seems perfectly reasonable that, at Glenbow,
collaboration would be characteristically somewhat distinctive. But it would be wrong to
suggest Nitsitapiisinni moved along its developmental path without any hitches. It was
stalled for a period of months when its funding ran out completely.
The larger structured collectives, that is those which exhibit and favor the conservatism
for which Calgary is also known (be it the provincial government or the multi-national
corporations that drive so much of the local economy), seemed to be glaringly absent
when Glenbow was looking for the necessary funds to bring Nitsitapiisinni to completion.
21 The natural history materials that Harvie did collect were housed with the Provincial Museum in Edmonton at
the time of the final transfer of his collections (Dempsey, 1991).22 Interview with Mike Robinson, April, 2003.
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There seemed to be little evidence of any of Calgary’s ‘distinctive community spirit’
(Seiler & Seiler, 2001: 29; see also Conaty, 2003). As is the case across Canada, there is
much competition for corporate donations in Alberta. Arts and culture organizations find
themselves competing with a myriad of requests for support from all manner of social
agencies, including purportedly government-run health care and educational organi-
zations. Overall, only limited corporate support was offered to the innovative, rather
‘maverick’ project, Nitsitapiisinni. Conaty (2003) offers a critique and analysis of some of
the complications and factors that initially stymied fundraising success. His discussion
aptly highlights (importantly for my discussion) that, at its core, the innovation and risk-
taking spirit of Calgary is not to be found freely exuding from the hierarchies of
government or the structures of large corporations. It is not here, in the end, where the
much touted Calgarian ‘frontier’ notion of community is generated. Rather, it is in the
actions of individuals who are driven by their personal commitment to a vision, an idea or
a project, which being in that place allows them to imagine.
In the end, the necessary resources were secured to bring Nitsitapiisinni to completion.
The days and months of discussion, debate, hard work and commitment to the idea were
celebrated at the opening on November 3, 2002, a grand event. I would argue that it was
the dogged determination of individuals like Conaty, Carter and Janes (and later
Robinson), who truly believed in the rightness of this ‘maverick’ project, rather than any
larger collective taking up the idea of the project. Frank Weaselhead, a member of the
Blackfoot team, did not waiver in his personal faith that the desired end for the project
would become a reality. He knew it had been done, he felt, in the proper Blackfoot way.23
Seminally, however, a determining factor was the fund raising strategies used, as outlined
to me by Robinson. They were strategically, and successfully, focused on getting the
message across to key individuals of what was unique and innovative about the project,
banking on cultivating their personal understanding and belief in the project. Once this
orchestration began, the desired monies started to come to together.24
An outsider looking in, who knew anything of the history of Glenbow and its place in
Calgary, would likely have shared Weaselhead’s unflagging optimism throughout the
project. Undertakings driven by the commitment of individuals, and the desire to do things
others consider impossible, seemed to have been part of the ongoing Glenbow legacy.
Innovation, many will argue in Calgary, happens only at this level, for at the larger
institutional level, conservatism and caution lie at the core.25
3. Producing HuupuKwanum/Tupaat
In May, 1999, HuupuKwanum/Tupaat opened at the RBCM. Eighteen months earlier
the museum had approached the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council (NTC), a body which has
membership from the 14 Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations(whose territories occupy most of
23 Interview with Frank Weaselhead, April, 2003.24 Interview with Mike Robinson, April, 2003.25 See House (1980). I want to thank Mike Robinson for bringing this reference to my attention.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212 205
the West Coast of Vancouver Island), with the idea of working together to produce an
exhibition. Martha Black, Curator of Ethnology at the RBCM, noted that the existence of
the NTC was
26 Fro
one of the positive things about doing [a] Nuu-chah-nulth show. It was a body which
represent[ed] at the time. all the Nuu-chah-nulth groups [due to its work on] treaty
and political issues. There was somebody that you could go and talk to about
partnership, about whether such an exhibition was possible, and if there might be
community support for it, and if so, how we must proceed.26
From connections made through the NTC, contacts with individuals in the community
were made. The focus of the exhibition was captured in the ideas of HuupuKwanum and
Tupaat. HuupuKwanum is the word
in the language of the northern Nuu-chah-nulth nations that describes everything a
chief owns, including valued hereditary names, dances, objects, rights, privileges,
lands and resources. Tupaat is an equivalent term in the language spoken by
Ditidaht, Pacheedaht, and Makah nations in the southern portion of Nuu-chah-nulth
territory. These concepts were put forward as organizing principles for the exhibit by
the representatives of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council. [These] concepts..
introduce non-Aboriginal people to the philosophical and personal connections that
these objects had—and continue to have—with Nuu-chah-nulth communities
(Black, 1999: 13).
In the end, the exhibition had several names: HuupuKwanum/Tupaat//Out of the
Mist/Treasures of the Nuu-chah-nulth Chiefs, the latter two added to assuage the concerns
of marketing and publicity staff at the museum who worried about the logistics of
communicating pronunciation, meaning and simply the spelling of an exhibition titled,
HuupuKwanum/Tupaat. Out of the Mist was a title chosen by the NTC from a number of
possibilities chosen by the RBCM’s Marketing Department. The exhibition ran for ten
months in Victoria and then traveled on to Denver and Los Angeles.
At the core of the exhibition were the RBCM collections, most centrally those collected by
Dr C.F Newcombe, a medical doctor who turned his interests to collecting ethnographic
objects, amassing material from the Nuu-chah-nulth people in the 1920s and 30s (see Cole,
1985). Other pieces in the exhibition were borrowed from Canadian, American and
international collections. New acquisitions and commissions, particularly pieces of
contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth art, were also included. Extensive use was also made of
images from the museum’s archival collections. It is important to note that this exhibition was
successfully put together over a short period of only 18 months. Moving from a general idea to
a fully developed exhibition in such short a timeframe presumes that the relationships
established worked well. They had to be based on the trust and confidence that everyone
shared a common goal, as there was little time to spare on conflict resolution and negotiation.
Through the NTC, a museum exhibition Advisory Committee was established.
This body provided ‘guidance in identifying and approaching potential public
m an interview with Martha Black, December, 2001.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212206
and private-sector sponsors.’ The museum was further ‘guided on matters of exhibit
protocol, content and structure by the Elders Advisory Council,’ a group facilitated by
[Willard Gallic,] a protocol officer for the NTC (Hoover 2000: 1). Gallic described his role
to me as a ‘liaison worker between the museum and the NTC, with the blessing of the
[Elders] committee.’27 He assisted the museum in identifying individuals and families in
the communities whose members traced their ancestry to objects considered for the
exhibition.
Other Nuu-chah-nulth individuals were hired by the museum to assist with the project,
both in collections research and public program development. In the early stages of the
planning, a consulting firm was hired to provide the Museum ‘with some advice in setting
up the appropriate protocols’ in terms of their relationship with the Nuu-chah-nulth First
Nations, the NTC, and Nuu-chah-nulth individuals who might be involved in the
development and production of the exhibit.28 Thus, the museum began their discussion
with a set of guidelines as to how to initiate their relationships with those in the
community. Written protocols developed between the museum, the NTC, and other Nuu-
chah-nulth determined that the project was done, as Gallic said, in a spirit of ‘mutual
respect’ in the ‘right way.’ Such agreements set-up ‘all the expectations as to how
something would be done’. For the Nuu-chah-nulth, this collaboration was an opportunity
to ‘open the door and tell [their] story themselves’. It ‘was an opportunity for the Nuu-
chah-nulth to be recognized.’29 To further this objective, the NTC pursued federal
government money to hire Nuu-chah-nulth interpreters to work in the exhibition, both in
Victoria and when it traveled to Denver and Los Angeles. To many Nuu-chah-nulth and to
the museum staff, this involvement was one of the most important aspects of the
exhibition’s success.
4. Paralleling structural hierarchies
There are many things that determine the success (or failure) of a collaborative
undertaking. I would suggest that one thing which facilitated the success of the Nuu-chah-
nuth/RBCM collaboration was the structural hierarchies which underlay the relationships
within both parties.
When I interviewed Willard Gallic, he emphasized that he had ‘nothing but praise for
the way the Executive of the museum treated me.’30 Grant Hughes, Director of Curatorial
Services at the RBCM, had also noted that he (Hughes) ‘represented the authority in the
institution which matched what a chiefly [Nuu-chah-nuth] family’s authority would be.’
He continued, “It was a mark of respect that I would go out and meet the chiefs and say, ‘I
represent senior levels of the museum, and we’re trying to work with you as chiefly
families’.”31 Hughes and Gallic worked together on a wide range of things, including
27 From an interview with Willard Gallic April, 2001.28 From an interview with Kevin Neary, December 2001.29 From an interview with Willard Gallic April, 2001.30 From an interview with Willard Gallic April, 2001.31 From an interview with Grant Hughes April, 2001.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212 207
finalizing press releases, talking to the media, and determining which dignitaries—both
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal—would be invited to the opening ceremonies.
The Elders Advisory Board had made it very clear that they were not interested in
identifying a singular Nuu-chah-nulth individual to work in tandem with Martha Black,
who assumed the curatorial role for the exhibition at the museum. As she said, ‘they
wanted [this] to be a relationship between the museum and the Nuu-chah-nulth
communities, and they were quite strong in expressing the idea that it would be chiefs
who would have the say over what was exhibited and what was said about what.’32 Gallic
established the connection to a chiefly family on behalf of the museum, following
appropriate Nuu-chah-nulth protocol arrangements, something which he proudly claimed
that the museum, ‘followed right to the T.’33 This process stretched the already very tight
time constraints on the project, for as Black said, ‘it took a long-time to find out who spoke
for the object and what was possible to say, and [then to] balance between ethnographic
and current information.’34
The delay was not a strategy of obstruction; the process of identifying the correct
individual was frequently a complex process of elimination, fragmented memory, and loss
of oral history due to the cultural disruption experienced by the Nuu-chah-nulth
throughout the last three centuries. Nuu-chah-nulth social hierarchies, however, continue
to operate and protocols had to be negotiated in tandem with these structures. As
anthropologist Leland Donald (1983: 110) observed,
32 Fro33 Fro34 Fro
Nuu-chah-nulth society was (and is) stratified. Each descent group. contained
members of two strata: ‘title-holders’. and ‘commoners’. Membership in these
strata was determined by birth and the strata tended toward endogamy.
Fundamentally, Nuu-chah-nulth society remains one cognizant of structural
hierarchies, based around the identification of chiefly families. Congruent with these
hierarchies, the Nuu-chah-nulth have a well established indigenous political philosophy,
confirming that the ‘chief in Nuu-chah-nulth society was, and to a large degree
remains, a focal point for group identity and action’ (Harkin, 1998: 331). It was
imperative that the ownership of the appropriate chiefly family be identified before
decisions were made about the content of the exhibition. If this was impossible to do
because of the loss of cultural memory, then it had to be determined if others could be
designated to assist in making the necessary decisions. In the end, however, direction
was always given to the museum as to how they should best proceed in the exhibition
development process.
The RBCM is itself a hierarchical organization. Five divisions, including curatorial
services, exhibits and visitors experience, visitor and human resource services, access and
information management, marketing and communications, and the chief financial office,
are all overseen by a CEO. Each of these divisions is further sub-divided. For example,
Curatorial Services, the section headed by Hughes, has six branches: Archival
m an interview with Martha Black, December 2001.
m an interview with Willard Gallic April, 2001.
m an interview with Martha Black, December 2001.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212208
Preservation Services, Conservation, First Nations’ Collections, History Section, Natural
History Section and Anthropology, the latter comprised of Ethnology, Archaeology, and
Audio–Visual Collections.35
There is nothing particularly unique about this hierarchical structure for the museum, as
it echoes other large provincial institutions across the country. But in this situation of
collaboration, there was a resonance of the importance of recognizing the limitations of
any one person’s authority within either the framework of either the Nuu-chah-nulth or the
museum. No one person was seen to be the spokesperson for either group. Individual
connections were made by museum staff with their parallel in the Nuu-chah-nulth
communities, and vice versa. For example, the public program developer at the RBCM
worked directly with a range of educators and craft workers in the schools and the
communities to develop interpretive programming for the HuupuKwanum/Tupaat. She had
almost nothing to do with Gallic or the NTC.
The important point here is that it was not only the curatorial staff who worked very
closely with the Nuu-chah-nulth people, which was in large measure the tradition at the
RBCM (see Inglis and Abbott 1991). Rank was matched by rank in establishing the
framework for relations between the Nuu-chah-nulth and the museum. It was also
important early on in the process that the RBCM worked through the NTC. They
represent the Nuu-chah-nulth in many capacities, including for a majority of the Nuu-
chah-nulth nations, and they are their voice in treaty negotiations with the federal
government. The process thus began with a formal institution to institution
communication.
To return to the Nitsitapiisinni example for a moment, it is worth noting that the
17 individuals who formed the Blackfoot collaborative team were not drawn together
through any formal structure, but they were all respected individuals in their
communities. Because of their past or present memberships in Blackfoot ceremonial
societies, as Conaty noted, ‘these people [had] the right to discuss and make
decisions about portraying spiritual ideas.’36 A personal relationship between Gerry
Conaty from the Glenbow, and Frank Weaselhead, a Blackfoot ceremonialist, was the
base on which the collaboration was built.37 Appropriate individuals were added to the
team to ensure representation from the four Blackfoot speaking groups, but there was
no umbrella institution which formed the hub of the networks used in the collaborative
process.
This rather organic process mirrors what the former director, Robert Janes (1995:
45–47), called the ‘shamrock concept’ of the organization he put in place in the institution in
1995 (see Fig. 1). Drawing on the work of organizational theory work of Charles Handy,
Janes implemented a model which determines a smaller permanent staff of ‘talented and
energetic people inside the organization who will contract specialist help from people
outside the organization’ (1995: 45). Championed as a management structure well suited to
‘knowledge-based organizations’ such as Glenbow, it was intended to address what had
35 See http://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/index_md.html. Last visited December 29, 2004.36 Email from Gerry Conaty, December 30, 2004.37 Interviews with Gerry Conaty and Frank Weaselhead, April, 2003.
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Fig. 1. The ‘shamrock’ organizational chart, Glenbow May, 1995. Based on image in Museums and the Paradox
of Change, R. Janes (Reprinted with permission of the author).
J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212 209
become the precarious future of the institution due to diminishing government and corporate
support through the 1990s (Janes, 1995: 18). The shamrock organizational concept stands in
sharp contrast to the more traditional flat lined hierarchy of the RBCM. The shamrock
design has certain coherence with the more ‘loosely allied band structure with fluid
membership and consensual decision making’ (Conaty, 1995: 408) of the Blackfoot, than
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212210
the ranked chiefly hierarchies of the Nuu-chah-nulth. Conaty observed that both the
Blackfoot and to some degree, the Glenbow, were ‘based on situational leadership rather
than strict hierarchy.38 I do not mean to imply that it would have been impossible for
the Blackfoot to have worked with a more hierarchical organization such as the RBCM, nor
that the Nuu-chah-nulth could not have worked with a more organically organized
institution such as the Glenbow. I do, however, suggest that the coherence at this level
facilitated a certain ease within what could be seen by some to be the potentially highly
charged process of exhibition development undertaken by both museums. Such coherence is
something which should be seen to contribute in some way to the success of these
collaborations.
5. Concluding thoughts
Working collaboratively with those whose material history museums hold is essential to
the work of these institutions in the 21st century. The urgency of this imperative must not,
however, be taken to presume that there is any formulaic model to be followed to ensure that
the most workable and empowering relationships unfold, particularly for groups such as
Aboriginal people in Canada who have for far too long been shut out of the work of museums.
A central dynamic in this process, in addition to the culture of what Peers & Brown (2003: 3)
call the ‘source community’, the political dynamics between this community and the museum,
and the issues of geographical proximity is, I would add, the institutional culture of the
museum involved. Glenbow was well suited to try something very distinctive, driven by the
vision of key individuals and based on the Eric Harvie/Calgarian legacy. The RBCM readily
‘tuned in’ to the Nuu-chah-nulth need to respect hierarchies and the limitation of authority and
knowledge due to its own hierarchical structure.
The role of institutional culture in the collaborative process might be seen to be a
further burdensome complexity in the already intricate process of collaboration with
‘source communities.’ More positively, however, it can alternatively be understood as part
of the reality of the social and historical world which is, after all, what the museum has
charged itself to document and interpret. Institutional self-reflexivity on its very existence
could be an important factor in understanding what factors contribute to the success
(or failure) of the important work of producing collaborative exhibitions.
Acknowledgements
I want to acknowledge the generous assistance of many with my research. I cannot
mention everyone by name but I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all the members
of the Blackfoot team, the various Nuu-chah-nulth individuals, and the staff of both
the RBCM and Glenbow Museum whom I interviewed. I would like to single out in
particular Dr Gerry Conaty, Dr Martha Black, Ms Beth Carter, Mr Frank Weaselhead
38 Email Gerry Conaty, December 30, 2004.
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J. Harrison / Museum Management and Curatorship 20 (2005) 195–212 211
and Mr Michael Robinson for their valued input and direction. Some of these individuals
have read various versions of this paper and I would like to sincerely thank them for their
feedback and commentary. I would also like to recognize the financial support of the
Symons Trust, the Frost Centre Research Committee and the Internal SSHRC Committee
at Trent University. I accept full responsibility for the content of the paper.
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Julia Harrison, DPhil is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario,
Canada. She had a career as museum curator, prior to moving to the academy in the mid-1990s. She continues to
do research on the museum as an institution, as well actively publishing and teaching in the field of critical
tourism studies. Her most recent publication in this field is Being a Tourist: Finding Meaning in Pleasure Travel
(University of British Columbia Press, 2003).