Showing 231 results

Anthony Shelton served as the Director of the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) from August 2004 through June 2021. A researcher, curator, teacher and administrator, his interests include Latin American, Iberian and African visual cultures, Surrealism, the history of collecting, and critical museology. Before coming to UBC he held curatorial positions at the British Museum, The Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery and Museum’s Brighton, the Horniman Museum, London, and academic appointments at the University of Sussex, University College, London and the University of Coimbra. He has been the Portuguese representative to ASEMUS (Asia-Europe Museums Network), and sat on the international advisory boards for the construction and development of the Humboldt Forum, Berlin and the Asian Cultural Complex, Gwangju.

Dr. Shelton has published extensively in the areas of visual culture, critical museology, history of collecting and various aspects of Mexican cultural history. His works include Art, Anthropology, and Aesthetics (with J. Coote eds. 19, 1992); Museums and Changing Perspectives of Culture (1995); Fetishism: Visualizing Power and Desire (1995); Collectors: Individuals and Institutions (2001); Collectors: Expressions of Self and Others (2001).

Dr. Shelton curated two acclaimed exhibitions at MOA: Luminescence: The Silver of Peru and Heaven, Hell and Somewhere In Between: Portuguese Popular Art. He also launched an award-winning publication series with Figure 1 Publishing, authoring several of its titles, including the recently published Under Different Moons: African Art in Conversation and Theatrum Mundi: Masks and Masquerades in Mexico and the Andes. He helped to expand MOA’s African, European and Latin American collections. He also developed strong relationships with consulates, created an external advisory board, and secured funding for postdoctoral curatorial fellows.

Dr. Shelton received Doctorate and Masters degrees from Oxford University, and a Bachelors degree from the University of Hull.

Victorian Henry grew up in Burlington, Ontario and studied Fine Arts at the University of Toronto. She lived with her husband and three children in Lusaka, Zambia from 1972 to 1975, during which she began to collect African art in earnest. Leaving Africa in 1975, Henry began the Ufundi Gallery, specializing in Makonde and other African art. Henry continued making regular trips to Africa, India, and China to buy work until the gallery closed in 1992.

David Dunnett Cunningham held the position of Projects Manager -Design, Exhibitions, and Facility Planning at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology (MOA) since 1988. In 2006 he was made Renewal Building Lead. In 2009 he was designated Manager, Design/Production/Renewal Building Lead. In 2010, Cunningham returned to his design role. His education includes undergraduate studies in Engineering and Geography, and graduate studies in Industrial Design at the University of Calgary, as well as technical training in cabinet making and photography.

Cunningham was responsible for managing all aspects of exhibition production at the Museum of Anthropology. This included the conceptualization and implementation of two and three-dimensional exhibits, long-term collection installations, signage, and other visual presentations. He directed and guided the design, production and installation of exhibits; provided cost estimates and production budgets; and prepared drawings, specifications and tender documents for exhibit installations, furniture, and modifications. Cunningham’s responsibilities also included the overall management of the museum as a member of the Executive Ways and Means Committee, Teaching and Curriculum Committee, Renewal Team, Building Team, and Research Centre Working Group; and facility-planning management, through liaison with the architect and the university for gallery and building renovation, and expansion plans. In this latter capacity, he was involved with renovations and modifications to Galleries 5 and 10, the Theatre, the Ethnology Lab, and the MOA renewal project.

He also taught exhibit design and museum architecture to undergraduate and graduate students in UBC’s Department of Anthropology. Working with the Museum’s collections and existing exhibits, course assignments included design and installation of small displays in node and other cases in Museum’s galleries.

Cunningham has been involved with the production of many exhibits, including A Rare Flower: A Century of Cantonese Opera in Canada (1993-95), which also travelled to Victoria, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton, Manitoba, and Montreal, The Abstract Edge: Recent Works by Robert Davidson (2004-2005), and Mehodihi: Well-Known Traditions of Tahltan People (2003-2005), among others. He has received awards from the Canadian Museums Association (CMA) relating to his work at the Museum, for Facility and Exhibition Design (1999), and for Outstanding Achievement in the Museum Management Category (1997). He has also published articles relating to his work.

Cunningham retired form the museum in 2015.

Audrey Patricia MacKay Shane was born on August 27, 1922 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She received a diploma in Interior Design from the University of Manitoba in 1942 and worked for the Department of Architecture and Fine Arts at the University for the next three years. In the period between 1962 and 1970, she served in voluntary roles such as secretary of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and treasurer of the Manitoba Archaeological Society. In 1974, Shane received her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia (UBC). A year later, she was hired as Archivist/Librarian at the Museum of Anthropology, a position she held until she was appointed Curator of Documentation in 1979. As Archivist/Librarian, Shane was responsible for the documentation of the Museum’s collections for inclusion in the National Inventory of Canada as well as for the cataloguing of the collections.

Shane completed her M.A. in Anthropology in UBC in 1978. Her primary interest was in the art and material culture of the northern Northwest Coast, China, Japan and the Insular Pacific before the 20th century. As the Curator of Documentation, Shane’s responsibilities included ensuring the accurate permanent catalogue records were created and maintained for the Museum’s collections, interpreting the Museum’s collections to the public and students through exhibits, publications, university and community teaching, and representing the museum on a local and international level. She taught a series of laboratory sessions in the Anthropology course, Museum Principles and Methods, a course offered by UBC’s Department of Anthropology and also conducted lectures and seminars for the Museum’s volunteers. Shane has written various scholarly articles and presented many papers in numerous conferences. Her published articles include “Sensibilities: Unsuspected Multicultural Harmonies” which appeared in the March/April 1983 issue of Canadian Collector, “Power in Their Hands: the Gitsontk,” which was published in The Tsimshian: Images of the Past Views for the Present and “Networking: the Canadian Experience,” a paper published for the Western Museum Conference in 1983. Shane has also curated a number of exhibitions and served on the Acquisitions and Collections Committees within the Museum. In addition, she was active in committees formed by professional associations such as the British Columbia Museum Association Committee on Legal and Ethical Questions. She also assumed the role of Signing Expert Examiner in Ethnography for the Canadian Cultural Property Export and Import Board. Shane retired from her position at the Museum in 1987.

Skooker Broome received an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia (UBC). Also at UBC, he took graduate courses in Museum Studies. His other educational pursuits include the study of German and French architecture, computer sciences, lighting design, web publishing, structural drafting, and the French language.

From 1986 to 1990, Broome worked at UBC's Museum of Anthropology (MOA) as an Assistant Designer. His duties included participating in the designing, production, and installation of a number of exhibits held at the Museum, teaching design principles to the Anthropology “Museum Principles and Practices” class, and producing & designing museum catalogues, brochures, invitations, and program schedules.

From 1990 to the present, Broome has been working as a Designer on a number of exhibits at the Museum of Anthropology. Broome’s tasks include designing, developing, planning, and installing museum exhibits and displays, teaching design principles to Anthropology students, and managing projects. His other duties include the management of the Museum’s building facilities and service, and he further works as a computer specialist and coordinator of computer technologies. In addition to his work at the Museum of Anthropology, Broome works as a contract designer for Third Eye Design, where he designs, develops, plans, installs, and consults on commercial projects.

Fuyubi Nakamura (中村冬日) is a socio-cultural anthropologist trained at Oxford. She is cross appointed with the Department of Asian Studies as Assistant Professor and with the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) where she works as Curator, Asia (as of June 9, 2023). She is also Associate Member in the Department of Anthropology. Fuyubi specializes in the anthropology of art, museum studies, and material and visual culture studies. She has taught in these fields in the graduate school at the Australian National University (2007-2010) and University of Tokyo (2012-2013), and curated exhibitions internationally prior to joining the Museum of Anthropology in 2014.

Her long-term research since 1998 is an anthropological study of contemporary Japanese calligraphy. In addition to her fieldwork in Japan, she also carried out a research project that investigated the world of Japanese calligraphy in South American countries with large Japanese immigrant communities such as Argentina and Brazil. She took a leave from academia following the triple disaster in Japan in 2011 or 3.11, and was involved in relief and recovery activities in Miyagi Prefecture, and continues to do research about the aftermath of 3.11.

Fuyubi was an associate researcher with the Institute for Art Anthropology at Tama Art University, Tokyo (2010-2015), a guest curator at the National Museum of Oriental Art in Buenos Aires (2010-11) and the producer/curator of the Tokunoshima island art project, Japan (2013-2014). Outside academia and museums, she has worked as a project coordinator for film festivals organized by NHK (Japan’s public broadcaster) and also in business in Tokyo between her degrees and also as a freelance translator for a number of years. Born in Tokyo, Fuyubi grew up in different parts of Japan and spent a year as an AFS intercultural programs exchange studen t in New Zealand before moving to England in 1992. She has travelled widely, especially in India and Europe and has spent several months in South America (Argentina, Brazil and Peru).

While her primary expertise lies in Japan, Fuyubi has also studied Indian art and worked on collaborations on Himalaya-related projects. Her work as a curator responsible for the entire Asia collection at MOA requires her to continuously expand the breadth of her knowledge of Asian cultures. Her research interests include material and visual cultures with special interest in Japan and its diasporas in Argentina and Brazil; Indigenous cultures; India and Tibet; contemporary art, photography and the relation between memory and objects, especially within the context of the 3.11 disaster in Japan.

Her projects around Indigeneity in Japan include:

• Recasting Ainu Indigeneity in Museums Through Performing Arts, August 2022.
• Ainu, Okinawa and Indigeneity Series, February – March 2021.
• Hokkaidō 150: Settler Colonialism and Indigeneity in Modern Japan and Beyond/北海道150年：近現代日本と世界における殖民・植民地主義と先住民性, March 2019

Her publications include:
• A Future for Memory: Art and Life after the Great East Japan Earthquake/記憶のための未来―東日本大震災後のアートと暮らし, Vancouver: The Museum of Anthropology at UBC, 2021.
• “Hokkaidō 150: Settler Colonialism and Indigeneity in modern Japan and Beyond” with Tristan R. Grunow et al. Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 51, No. 4, 2019.
• Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia, Vancouver: Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing and MOA, 2017.
• Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation across Borders. Edited with Morgan Perkins and Olivier Krischer. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
• Trazos del Tiempo, Trazos de Palabras: Obras de Artistas Japoneses/Traces of Time, Traces of Words: Works by Japanese Artists, Buenos Aires: The National Museum of Oriental Art, 2011.
• Ephemeral but Eternal Words: Traces of Asia, Canberra: The Australian National University School of Art Gallery, 2010.
• “Memory in the debris: The 3/11 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami.” Anthropology Today, Vol.28, Issue 3, 2012.

Her exhibitions include:
• A Future for Memory: Art and Life after the Great East Japan Earthquake/記憶のための未来―東日本大震災後のアートと暮らし, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Canada, February 11– September 19, 2021. Curator.
• Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Canada, May 11 – October 9, 2017. Curator.
• (In)visible: The Spiritual World of Taiwan through Contemporary Art/形(無)形-台灣當代藝術的靈性世界, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Canada, November 20, 2015 – April 3, 2016. Curator.
• Tokunoshima Island Art Project, Japan, July 2013 – August 2014. Curator/Producer.
• Trazos del Tiempo, Trazos de Palabras: Obras de Artistas Japoneses/Traces of Time, Traces of Words: Works by Japanese Artists at the Culture Centre of the National Foundation of Arts of Argentina hosted by the National Museum of Oriental Art, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1– 30 March 2011. Curator.
• Ephemeral but Eternal Words: Traces of Asia, the School of Art Gallery, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 6 April‐1 May 2010. Curator.
• I am a Curator, a process-based exhibition project by artist Per Hüttner at Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK. 13 December 2003. Co-curator.

Her awards include:
• The 2022 Michael M. Ames Prize for Innovative Museum Anthropology for A Future for Memory: Art and Life after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
• The 2018 Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Research Category from the Canadian Museum Association, for Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia. An honourable mention for the same award (2022) for her A Future for Memory
• 2014 Best Anthropology Prize for Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation across Borders (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013) from the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand
Fuyubi has received numerous grants including:
• The SSHRC Connection Grant for A Future for Memory (2021-2023).
• The Japan Foundation Exhibition Abroad Support for A Future for Memory (2021), Traces of Words (2017), Trazos del Tiempo, Trazos de Palabras: Obras de Artistas Japoneses (2011) and Ephemeral but Eternal Words (2010).

According to his obituary (from the Vernon News, February 19 1953), Francis Edward Richmond Wollasten was an English immigrant who arrived in the Okanagan in the 1890’s. He started work at the Coldstream Ranch in Vernon, B.C. in 1914, and held the position of manager of the Ranch from 1918 until 1939. He passed away in Victoria B.C. in 1953.

Alexander Frederick Richmond Wollaston (1875-1930) was a doctor, naturalist, explorer, and member of the Royal Geographical Society in London. A.F.R. Wollaston went on numerous expeditions between 1905-1925, including trips to Uganda, the Congo, Dutch New Guinea, and Mt. Everest. A.F.R. Wollaston was killed on June 3, 1930 at King’s College in Cambridge, England.

Born Evelyn Sheasgreen, Evelyn Goddard was a young teacher in Kitzegukla, BC in the early 1920s.

Gordon Miller is a freelance artist who currently lives and works in Vancouver, BC. Miller was born in Winnipeg in 1932 and attended the Vancouver School of Art from 1950 to 1955. In 1977 he began working as a freelance artist, illustrator, and graphic designer, completing major contracts for the UBC Museum of Anthropology, Royal British Columbia Museum, and National Film Board. He also produced illustrations for the UBC Press, Canadian Geographic, Readers Digest, Historical Atlas of Canada, Parks Canada, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. An avid sailor since his youth, historical sailing ships and maritime scenes are the subject of much of Miller’s artwork.

Gordon Miller has completed a number of commissions for the UBC Museum of Anthropology including contracts for creating large watercolour illustrative panels, many of which were meant to recontextualize material objects from the museum’s collection by showing them in their historical context being used for their original functions.

Nadia Abu-Zahra was appointed an anthropologist in the Anthropology/Sociology Department of the University of British Columbia by Director Cyril Belshaw in the late 1960s or early 1970s. She graduated from Oxford with a PhD in social anthropology, and later lived and taught at Oxford.

No biographical information available.

Harlan Ingersoll Smith was born in 1872 in East Saginaw, Michigan. He joined the Geological Survey of Canada as head of the Archaeology Division (now part of the Canadian Museum of Civilization) in 1911. His early work concentrated on excavating archaeological sites in Eastern Canada, and on Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands. Returning to British Columbia in 1920, Smith began ethnographic fieldwork among the Bella Coola (including the Nuxalk, Carrier and Chilcotin communities), concentrating on their use of plant and animal materials, social organization and ritual traditions. Smith was also a pioneering ethnographic filmmaker and photographer documenting Plains, Plateau and Northwest Coast Aboriginal people. He wrote and published many articles throughout his career. Smith retired from the Canadian Museum of Civilization in 1936 and died in 1940.

Lieutenant Colonel Eric Parker was born on June 16, 1896, in London, England. He was a British military Commander with the Indian government who led a little known expedition of approximately 200 Punjabi soldiers from Calcutta to Tibet in November 1921. In addition, Lt. Col. Parker conducted basic and advanced infantry training of Tibetan soldiers from January to March 1923 at the request of the Tibetan military. During his military career, Lt. Col. Parker corresponded with British diplomat, Sir Charles Bell, and various members of the Tibetan government, including the 13th Dalai Lama.

On January 2, 1923, Lt. Col Parker married in Calcutta and, with his wife, travelled back to Tibet on horseback where his training of Tibetan soldiers would begin. After his initial British disapproval, Lt. Col. Parker became accepting of the Tibetan culture and during this period of his life learned to speak in Tibetan, Urdu, Tamil, and Punjabi. The Parkers adapted to Tibet, living in both Yutang and Ganze. After Lt. Col. Parker was released from the military, the couple tried to stay on and establish a trading station, but lasted only one year. During their stay in Tibet the Parkers collected numerous objects, letters, and photographs that provide rare documentation of this period in Tibet’s history (i.e., before the Chinese invasion in 1950). Lt. Col. Parker died in 1988.

Lt. Col. Parker was in the Indian military at a significant time in Tibetan history. From 1918-1921, evidence suggests the Dalai Lama continued to forge closer ties to the British. Since the Simla Convention in 1914, Britain and Tibet had agreed to Chinese ‘suzerainty’ over Tibet, but China refused to ratify the pact and agree to the territorial divisions established. In 1918, fighting broke out between British-trained Tibetan troops and the Chinese, and was later followed by British attempts to mediate and discuss a Tibetan autonomy settlement. In 1920 to 1921, Sir Charles Bell went to Lhasa to urge better relations between Tibet and Britain. Despite Tibetan reluctance to accept further British influence, Charles Bell suggested increasing military aid to Tibet, and it was in 1923 that Lt. Col. Parker arrived to train the soldiers. In 1924-25, pressure from the monks caused the Dalai Lama to dismiss his British-trained officers. Tibetan independence lasted until the overthrow of the Republic of China by the Communists in 1949, and the establishment of the People's Republic of China.

In 2005, photographs and textual records, along with several objects, were donated to the Museum of Anthropology by Lt. Col. Parker’s daughter, Mrs. Mary Noble. Lt. Col. Parker’s grandson, Father Harry Donald, provided valuable contextual information and is currently preparing to write a history of his grandfather’s time in Tibet.

Victor Othello dos Remedios was born in Macau in 1893. He spent most of his life in Shanghai, China until 1951. He was trained as an accountant and worked for most of his adult years at the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank of Commerce and at an American-owned pulp and paper mill. He married his first wife at the age of twenty-four and had a son who developed polio and was sent to Switzerland for schooling and health care. He married again at about the age of forty and had a daughter in 1938. At age fourteen he registered in the Shanghai Volunteer Corps and served until 1942 when war broke out. He took photographs of two bombing incidents in Shanghai in the 30s as a member of the Corps. In 1942, Victor along with his wife Valentina and daughter Elizabeth were interned at one of many of the camps set up by the occupying Japanese forces in Shanghai for expatriates. They were released in April 1945 and had no place to live as their house was occupied by Korean allies of the Japanese, so they remained for another year in the camp.
The family eventually repossessed their home and Victor resumed work at his previous job as a manager of the pulp and paper mill. With the impending threat of invasion by the recently formed Red Army, his wife and daughter were sent to Hong Kong to live with relatives. Victor stayed in Shanghai until he had trained a Chinese replacement to manage the mill. In 1950, he was able to join his family and after a short stay in Hong Kong the family immigrated to Canada. In 1981, Victor passed away in a care facility in Victoria, BC. As of March 2014, his wife Valentina still lives in Victoria.

William Ronald Reid (Q'adasru qiirawaay, Raven Clan of T'anuu) was born in 1920 in Victoria, B.C. His mother, Sophie Gladstone, was from the Kaadaas gaah Kiiguwaay, Raven-Wolf Clan of T'anuu (Haida), but she was educated at the Coqualeetza Residential School. His father was an American of Scottish-German descent. At twenty Reid began his career in broadcasting, as a radio announcer. From 1948 to 1958 he worked for the CBC in Toronto and Vancouver. Also, while in his twenties, he decided to emulate his maternal grandfather, Charles Gladstone and become a silver and goldsmith. Gladstone was trained by Charles Edenshaw, a master Haida artist. In conjunction with his grandfather's training, Reid analyzed many pieces held in museum collections. He also trained in traditional European jewellery techniques in Toronto, Ontario and London, England and applied those techniques (eg. repousse) to Northwest Coast metal work. When Reid returned to the West Coast he began seriously to pursue Haida imagery in both jewelry and sculpture. His works, known for their superb craftsmanship, range from exquisite carvings in precious metals and argillite to monumental sculptures in bronze and cedar. They have been collected and exhibited all over the world. Some of his most acclaimed sculptures include The Raven and the First Men at the Museum of Anthropology, and The Spirit of Haida Gwaii (1991), castings of which are located at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the Vancouver Airport. Other celebrated pieces include Chief of the Undersea World at the Vancouver Aquarium, and Lootaas (Wave Eater), a cedar canoe that has been shown in Paris, and is now at home in Haida Gwaii. Bill Reid was the first living artist to have his work displayed in the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, in an exhibition celebrating the works of ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. It can be said that Bill Reid's work forms a link between ancient and contemporary artistic styles, and was instrumental in the revitalization of the northern Northwest Coast artistic tradition. Reid received many awards in his lifetime, including the Canada Council Molson Award, the Bronfman Award for Excellence in Crafts, the Vancouver Lifetime Achievement Award, the Royal Bank Award for Outstanding Canadian Achievement, and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Lifetime Achievement. UBC awarded Bill Reid an Honorary degree in 1976 for his contribution to the cultural life of Canada. He died on March 13, 1998 after a 30-year battle with Parkinson's disease.

Doug Cranmer was born in Alert Bay, son of Chief Dan Cranmer and Agnes Hunt Cranmer. He set the standard of innovation for Kwakwaka'wakw art. His first formal instruction was in Victoria under Mungo Martin, in 1959. He worked with Bill Reid on UBC's Haida Village project c. 1959-62, and on the restoration of totem poles in Vancouver's Stanley Park. After completing the UBC project in 1962, Cranmer (with A.J. Scow and Dick Bird) founded a retail gallery, The Talking Stick. This was one of the few initiatives at the time through which First Nations art was marketed by First Nations people. Cranmer had totem pole commissions from around the world, and is considered an innovative master of flat design. His exhibitions include, Arts of the Raven, 1967, and the B.C. Pavillion at Expo '70, in Osaka Japan. His influence as a teacher was also significant, he taught at 'Ksan, the Vancouver Museum, and at Alert Bay, since 1977. He worked as an artist in residence at MOA in 1995. Doug was a hereditary chief of the 'Namgis band, and had also worked as a fisherman and a hand logger. He was an inspiration to his home community, contributing extensively to the construction of the U'mista Cultural Centre and the Bighouse at Alert Bay.

Reverend Basil Shakespeare Sutherland Hartley was ordained by the BC Conference of the United Church of Canada in 1939. Accompanied by his wife Edythe, Hartley worked in communities throughout BC, including Skidegate (1939-1940), Kitimaat (1941-1943), Windermere Valley (1944-1945), Greenwood (1946-1947), Nakusp (1948-1950). In 1951 he retired to Vancouver, and later lived in Nanaimo (1953), Castor, Alberta (1945-1955), and Rockey Mountain House (1956-1957). He died in 1973. Edythe Hartley later remarried, becoming Edythe McClure.

Edyth McClure was the wife of the former United Church missionary, Rev. Basil Hartley, who served in the Kitimat area.