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Use for: Events, special

• September 18, 2013 - May 11, 2014 (The O'Brian Gallery)
• Speaking to Memory: Images and Voices from St. Michael's Residential School grew out of a unique opportunity to present the personal experiences of First Nations children who attended St. Michael's Indian Residential School at Alert Bay, British Columbia. During the late 1930s, one student at the school had a camera and photographed many of her friends and classmates there. She recently donated these images to the Museum of Anthropology’s archive. The photos provide a rare and moving glimpse of residential school life through the eyes of students as they made a life for themselves away from families and home communities. St. Michael’s Indian Residential School operated from 1929 to 1974, and its now-empty building is in deteriorating condition. With the support of the U'mista Cultural Centre (UCC) and the 'Namgis First Nation at Alert Bay, MOA curator Bill McLennan was permitted to enter the building and photograph its interior spaces where the children had lived and worked. The resulting images, together with those of the students, are featured in Speaking to Memory, an exhibition jointly produced by McLennan and the UCC’s director Sarah Holland and curator Juanita Johnston. In Alert Bay, Speaking to Memory hangs around the exterior of the St. Michael’s school building, located beside the cultural centre. At MOA, the exhibition is presented in our O’Brian Gallery. The large photographic panels depict the interior rooms of the school as they now appear, overlaid with historical images of the children. Accompanying the images are personal statements from former students of St. Michael's school, recalling their experiences there. Quotations from a variety of sources express the Canadian government's rationale for Indian residential schools, while excerpts from the 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recognize the devastating impact of the schools. In addition, one "artifact" is featured in MOA’s exhibit: the institutional food-mixing machine, recently salvaged from the school’s kitchen. The Indian residential school system was implemented in 1879 by the Canadian government to eliminate the "Indian problem"—that is, to absorb the Aboriginal population into the dominant Canadian identity, and to impose Christianity, English or French as the primary languages, and the abandonment of cultural and family traditions. St. Michael's Indian Residential School in Alert Bay was one of 140 Indian residential schools that operated in Canada.

Use for: Squamish

• April 8, 2004 - August 1, 2005
• Student exhibition: Students of Anthropology 431 are developing an exhibition of photographs that examine why we create sacred places and spaces in our urban environment. They identify locations that might be permanent or transitory, formal or informal, public or private, real or imagined, built or natural.

• November 26, 2010 – September, 30, 2011 (Gallery 3)
• From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, Charles and Isabella Edenshaw produced Haida art that continues to inspire the finest Haida artists of today, many of whom are their descendants. What is the aesthetic that makes their work recognizable and so respected? How has it remained contemporary for more than 100 years? This exhibit addresses these and other questions by highlighting Charles Edenshaw’s engraved silver bracelets, as well as his wife Isabella’s basketry, which Charles painted. Join curator Bill McLennan at 7 pm on Tuesday, November 30 for a talk and tour of the exhibit. Media sponsor The Georgia Straight.

• April 5, 1983 - June 1984 (Orientation Centre) Student exhibition: The box, its friends, foes and ancestors.
• Student exhibition: The box, its friends, foes and ancestors.

• December 2, 2018 – Fall 2019
• CURATORS: Jill Baird and Jennifer Kramer
• Earthquakes have long been a part of the reality of living along the Northwest Coast. At MOA, preparation for this reality is a priority of monumental proportions as the Museum’s iconic Great Hall undergoes major seismic upgrades to help preserve the building, the collections and cultural heritage. In conjunction with this immense undertaking, MOA’s exhibition, Shake Up: Preserving What We Value, explores the convergence of earthquake science and technology with the rich Indigenous knowledge and oral history of the living cultures represented in MOA’s Northwest Coast collection. Beyond scientific discoveries, Shake Up also puts into the foreground traditional knowledge of earthquakes and natural disasters that has been passed down through generations throughout many cultures. Through multimedia installations, contemporary First Nations art and cultural objects, Shake Up explores the connection between cultural knowledge and natural seismic events. Bringing together the perspectives of cultures, arts and sciences, this exhibition reflects on what we value and how we preserve it. The exhibition will be displayed in areas throughout the Museum, and visitors will have the opportunity to see the majestic poles of the Great Hall undergo important conservation work while they are temporarily stored in the adjacent O’Brian Gallery. Shake Up: Preserving What We Value is the first of two exhibitions at MOA to explore the theme of natural disasters and their implications. A Future for Memory: In the Aftermath of the 3/11 Disaster, curated by MOA’s Curator of Asia, Fuyubi Nakamura, is slated to open in early 2020. Based on research from the past seven years, its focus will be on changing physical and psychological landscapes in the aftermath of 2011 earthquake in Japan, and consider its local and global resonances.

• May 16, 2019 – October 14, 2019
• CURATOR: Nicola Levell (Associate Professor, Anthropology, UBC)
• Over 250 puppets, old and new, from 15 countries, are illuminated in MOA’s dramatic new exhibition. These exquisite puppets—sometimes charming, sometimes a little bit scary, and always entertaining—come together and reveal our enduring fascination with storytelling. For thousands of years, knowledge holders and storytellers around the world have engaged puppets as a means to dramatize the human experience. Puppets have been delighting, entertaining and educating audiences of all ages, letting our imaginations soar. Puppets are the precious purveyors of our epics, dreams and satires. Enter into a theatrical world of kings and queens, demons and clowns, supernatural beings and more. Extraordinary stories and fantastical characters fill the stages, cases and multimedia installations of this enchanting exhibition. Whether animated using age- old techniques or digital technologies, puppets are manipulated by hand, and here you’ll discover more about the different forms of manipulation and animation that give them life: shadow, string, rod, hand, and stop-motion. With a focus on Asia, Europe and the Americas, the exhibition draws from MOA’s stunning international collection of puppets—the largest in Western Canada-—and reveals new acquisitions from China, Brazil, Sicily, Java, the UK and France. Shadows, Strings and Other Things is an immersive experience that illuminates how puppetry continues to evolve and innovate in the hands of artists and performers who keep the tradition alive. From graceful Vietnamese water puppets and comical British hand puppets to the captivating stop-motion puppet animation of the award-winning Indigenous artist Amanda Strong—the full spectrum of human resilience and creativity is on display.

• November 24, 1987 - February 28, 1988 (Gallery 9)
• An exhibition of patchwork and embroidery wall hangings - traditional folk art that became a form of protest against the harsh conditions of life for Chile’s poor. The project was made possible through the support of the Salt Spring Island Voice of Women.

• October 27, 1982 – June 5, 1983 (Gallery 5)

• February 3 - April 12, 1998
• In this exhibit, MOA showcases works from its collection of over 300 Northwest Coast prints by such artists as Joe David (Nuu-chah-nulth), Robert Davidson (Haida), Freda Diesing (Haida), Walter Harris (Gitksan), Tony Hunt (Kwakwaka’wakw), Susan Point (Musqueam), and Roy Henry Vickers (Tsimshian).

• May 1980 – February 1981

• 2007
• There are more than 90,000 historic photographs in the Archives at the Museum of Anthropology. The collection is worldwide, covers a multitude of subjects, and dates from the early 1900s to the present day. This exhibit reveals only a tiny portion of this hidden gem, yet hints at the remarkable potential of this collection for scholars, researchers, and visitors. Geographically, the collection includes images from the Northwest Coast of British Columbia, the Southwest United States, South America, and various areas of Asia, Oceania and Africa. Institutionally, the collection documents the people and events that were instrumental in the history and growth of the Museum.