Centre brings Northwest Coast Art home, virtually

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Leading-edge technology will help grant British Columbians unprecedented access to a wealth of Northwest Coast art stored around the world through a new centre at Simon Fraser University commemorating a renowned Haida artist.

A partnership has been struck between the Bill Reid Foundation and the university to establish the Bill Reid Centre for Northwest Coast Art Studies, aimed at promoting an understanding of Northwest Coast Indigenous art "through research, connoisseurship and apprenticeships," said George MacDonald, the new president of the foundation who will also head up the centre.

MacDonald is an internationally renowned expert in Northwest Coast art who has held directorship at world-class museums, such as the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Melbourne Museum and, most recently, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington in Seattle. He said the centre will serve as a portal to half-a-million pieces of artwork and decorative household items currently stored in museums around the world.

The ultimate goal of the Bill Reid Centre, said MacDonald, is to create a virtual museum by building a database of more than 1,000 known contemporary Northwest Coast artists and their work, and by sharing digital databases of traditional Northwest Coast artwork with museums in Europe, Asia and North America.

"Currently only half-a-dozen of the known Northwest Coast artists have detailed biographical information or books written about them," said MacDonald. "The database will help us put together the contemporary Northwest Coast art scene, while gaining historical reference to work by unnamed master artists of the past."

But students, researchers and the general public won't be short-changed just because the objects aren't physically located in B.C., said MacDonald. In fact, through new technology like binocular laser scanning, pioneered by the National Research Council and similar to the kind used to document Michelangelo's David in Italy, researchers and the general public will gain access to the minute details that may escape notice with the naked eye.

"A lot of manufacturing information is embedded in the pieces, but may be covered up by paint, for example," said MacDonald. "The 3D scans give us an exact model of a piece in whatever detail we wish, and allow us to manipulate, compare and extract details without physically harming the pieces."

Researchers can also make exact replicas for study or exhibition.

"Most importantly, it allows us to keep long-term conservational record of the artwork," he said.

MacDonald's conservation expertise brought him face-to-face with the artwork that inspired him to become an archaeologist.

"When I was about four years old, I came across a book by CW Jefferys. I reverberated when I saw the illustration of a totem pole by Chief Walkus.

Decades later, while MacDonald was working for the then Museum of Ottawa, he was asked by the Vancouver Park Board to help restore the pole.

"For a period of 35 years, we had the pole in Ottawa and it was fully restored by the grandson of the man who did the original carving," MacDonald explained.

The pole is now the centrepiece in the grand hall of the Museum of Civilization and was used to represent Canadian art during U.S. President George Bush's recent visit.

MacDonald said his personal involvement in restoring the pole sums up his conviction that art can bridge cultures while reinforcing the cultural identity of people. A concept he believes he shared with the late Bill Reid.

"Bill was a great communicator. Art communicates and I think he's a great example of using art to communicate between communities."

As he begins work with museums from England, the U.S., China and Taiwan, all of which have expressed interest in showcasing Northwest Coast art in partnership with the centre, MacDonald said his other priorities will be to offer public lectures and exhibitions that wll bring the art style to the public, both in B.C. and around the world.

"We're convinced the style plays a leading role in today's world art market," said MacDonald, who added that thanks to Bill Reid's artistic legacy, there are now two billion ways to appreciate Northwest Coast art. His work is featured on the new $20 Canadian bill.

"Now everybody is walking around with a work of Native art in their pocket."