When you walk into the first hallway of the Manitoba Museum this summer, you’ll be greeted by a temporary exhibit that asks a very important, meta-level question: why does the museum preserve the things that it does?
The Museum Collection Illuminated attempts to answer that question by exploring the history of the museum and how each of the departments it contains, from natural history to geology and everything in between, considers which artifacts are important to preserve and how they have been displayed to tell Manitoba’s stories.
“One of the things that I love about this museum in general and about this exhibit specifically is how all of us curators have worked together to create this interesting whole that tells a broad story of what sorts of activities we’re doing here at the museum,” says Joe Moysiuk, Curator of Geology and Paleontology.
The exhibit shows a variety of objects, from a model of a plesiosaur skull that would have been on display in the museum’s early decades to the coat of former prime minister William Lyon McKenzie King, a donation to the museum that now contains notes not only about the prime minister’s wartime accomplishments, but also his harsh anti-immigration policies. The modern reflections on older artifacts is paired with elements from more recent history such as a poster from the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
“One of the big questions that we get is, ‘Why do we have collections? What are they for?’ explains Amelia Fay, Curator of Anthropology and the Hudson’s Bay Company Collection. “And so, this whole exhibit is really showing what they’re for. We’re thinking about the past, the present, and the future.”
Having a collection like this one not only gives museum-goers insight into the curatorial process but also helps the curators themselves gain perspective on the institution and the role it plays in the community. “A lot of the belongings in here are things where’ we’ve been establishing relationships with the communities, talking to them, doing that kind of work which wasn’t the way museums really functioned even twenty, thirty years ago,” says Fay.
“We’re open to giving many perspectives and sides and stories, and people are complicated and history’s complicated” she continues, “and I think now, we’re much more open to acknowledging that.”
Moysiuk notes that a similar dynamic is taking place on the geology and paleontology front. “Part of that is just recognizing, you know, how science is evolving through time,” he says. “It’s not a static thing – it's something that is ever-changing.”
“I think there is a lot of commonality there between the human history and natural history side if you dig deep enough.”
The Museum Collection Illuminated will be on display until next May at the Manitoba Museum. For more information and to plan your visit, check out the Manitoba Museum’s website.