Museum head assures visitors

Page 15

The capital's Canadian Museum of Civilization has had a new president and chief executive officer for only five months, but it is clear he is putting his stamp on the way our cultures are reflected back to us.

His plans call for adding explanatory text to exhibits that previously was left out or minimized. He wants to showcase history with all the warts included.

Dr. Victor Rabinovitch reflects tremendous pride in being associated with that task. To him the museum is a living entity that he cares for as other people care for their potted plants: feeding, pruning, moving things around to be shown to their best advantage and so that they spend the optimum amount of time in light and in shadow. Most of all, he is positively exuberant when the neighbors line up for a look. What they will notice most is the record of colonial settlers' interaction with Aboriginal cultures they found here.

"A museum doesn't just have to show old things that were gathered from some place," said Rabinovitch.

The museum's spectacular, mirrored grand hall was designed to overlook the Rideau Canal and the historic trading route that is the Ottawa River, and it directly faces Parliament Hill. It is so large it can "comfortably" accommodate 700 people for a sit-down dinner, he said.

"The height of (the grand hall) and the design of it (shows) at full height various totem poles and other West Coast, or, as the Americans say, Pacific Northwest art and artifacts. The idea being . . . a setting that shows them in glory and that basically gives you this impression of stunning creativity," said Rabinovitch.

He said it is a thrill to walk to work in the morning and see the buses of visitors lined up and to realize that he now has a part in all this. But he makes sure you know that it wasn't him who came up with the original concepts and that it isn't Rabinovitch's museum.

"I don't want to exaggerate to anybody. . . . You don't come into a museum that is by . . . many standards, so successful, and just walk in and say 'yeah, well I'm changing . . . everything.'" Rabinovitch emphasized that not only is he very appreciative of what his predecessors left but also of the job the current staff do. In his view, their job is now grafting onto and fertilizing the contributions of the past, rather than just him taking the attitude "I'm the new broom," and sweeping away others' accomplishments. He said where he's seen new people take that approach, "they are usually not all that creative and all that successful."

Despite his praise, the new curator is forthright in saying that he has walked through the grand hall and said, "I don't like this, because it is overwhelmingly . . . entirely Northwest Pacific." The previous curator, George MacDonald, was an expert in Northwest . Rabinovitch believes "it is really not representative of the First Nations of Canada. On the other hand, you look at it and then you go down the escalator and walk through it and you can't walk out of there without saying, 'my god, what sophisticated people these are'-sophisticated, creative, artistic-by any measure of, what should we call it, Western civilization."

But even Canada's largest and arguably most popular museum will grow. And grow in a way that will correct the imbalance in the cultures represented. Next June will see the opening of a 40,000 square foot First Peoples Hall that will house the history of Aboriginal people coast to coast.

"It is focusing on a series of themes. Firstly, the contribution of Aboriginal people. We are contributors, in the present tense . . . . Connectedness to the land as a second theme, that connectedness is an ancient connectedness, as well as an ongoing present connectedness . . . the diversity of Aboriginal people . . . and the most contemporary part, which is survival and continuity."

The exhibit will include several Aboriginal languages.

Apart from the First Peoples Hall, the museum's history department is prioritizing the addition of tetual material to other historical material in advance of the start of the tourist season next March.

Rabinovitch said he thinks that part of the reason the last 10 years have seen "very significant changes in the broad, popular attitude of non-Native people towards Native peoples" is the experience of seeing and being persuaded by the museum's holdings.

With 1.3 million visitors each year for 10 years, that's 13 million visitors who have had an opportunity to be persuaded that Indian culture is alive and well. Even allowing for repeat visits and visits from foreigners, Rabinovitch estimates "at least five million Canadians" have walked through in that length of time. He believes "a tremendous proportion had to be tremendously favorably impressed and walked out with the lingering message of what sophisticated nations we're dealing with."

Rabinovitch said he believes it is equally important to include Aboriginal people in all aspects of the museum, not just those that deal with their cultures.

"What's great about a museum like this is the way it is integrating experience and integrating information and basically building the general message of inclusivity," he said.

There are five First Nations curators in training at the museum now, as well as others on staff, Rabinovitch pointed out. One, Gerald McMaster, recently left to work at the Smithsonian Institution in the United States.