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Canadian Museum of Civilization- English
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Join us here to share your thoughts about history and what you’d like to see in your national history museum. You’ll be answering the same questions that are being posed to the participants at the live event taking place at the same time at the Museum.
We’re looking forward to reading your comments and having a conversation. Please note that comments are being moderated, so they may take some time to appear.
The evening starts with the webcast of the panel discussion at 7:00 pm.
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It is very interesting the views of the panel and how they think the museum should present history. I am confused. Is this not what the museum has been doing so well all these years? The fact that new displays, exhibits themes etc should be presented is hardly a justification or demand the necessity to start over. -
Much of Canada began before history with the First Nations. In many cases what we know of these groups has come from archaeology and not history. Where does that go when you restrict the name of the museum to a time period that began with the arrival of Europeans?
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I am completely baffled at this entire project that is investing millions at a time when there are so many cuts to vital programs.
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Thank you all for your comments, we'd like to now begin the virtual roundtable by asking you the same questions as the participants here are answering.
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The answers to these questions from all the consultations across Canada are being compiled and used to inform what will be in the new gallery and help develop programs to continue engaging Canadians.
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First question: What does history mean to you?
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History to me means maintaining a continuous conversation with our past. It also means preserving and interpreting information in three contexts: how it was understood at the time; its implications for today; and its implications for the future. -
Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it.
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History is also a two-edged sword. It can be used selectively to support any argument and in its most extreme case used to justify social and political repression. This is why history study and story telling needs to be kept well away from the political process. It is also why I am disturbed by this process - it looks and feels much to close to the politicians. The only explanation for it is that Jim Moore wants it.
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David, what would convince you about the independence of the museum?
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Question 3: What can the museum do for you? It can be as concrete as a program or exhibition or it could be what you expect as the role of your national museum of history.
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History shouldn't be one grand national narrative. It needs to encompass a Whole of Society approach. -
The key part of the word is "story" and how we tell it. Our history also needs to feed our understanding of the world and our place in it.
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AerErika, can you define "whole of society"? What does that mean to you?
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Big question! At the moment some answers to my earlier questions. The consultation has started in mid-stream - what kind of history museum should we have, who should it feature? I am a passionate historian, hence my login name, but I am also a public policy person and I have seen no explanation about why we have to cannibalize a highly respected and important museum in order to build a new one on its ashes. The board would need to go back to those basics to get me to suspend my disbelief that it is conducting a political agenda (or simply that it is a reverse takeover by the War Museum). Either way there are basic issues that are being glossed over.
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It means don't just look at war heros and prime ministers. History goes beyond war ad politics. It needs to reflect everyday life and culture. The history or workers, the history of how different cultural and social classes experiences in the same society; the history of leisure, the history of sexuality, etc
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Q3 - it should have a front end of permanent, virtual and travelling exhibits. It should play a leading role in networking local museums across the country. It should seek out the synergies with Library and Archives Canada. It should be complemented by a national portrait gallery so we can see the faces of history in contemporary form. Most importantly it should be underpinned by serious scholarship and prepared to play a challenge function to popular conceptions as well story telling. And... it should be linked to good ethnographic and scientific museums. Our museums are and should think of themselves as part of a continuum.
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I want my national museum to provide me with a place where the exhibitions and programs start a conversation.
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I'm curious to see how this new national museum can take on the role of mentor or partner to smaller regional museums across Canada. Will people have to come to Ottawa to see our national history or will you offer opportunities to send out travelling exhibits to ''satellite museums''
in other provinces? -
I agree with David Historian, a networking role in supporting local museums across the country would make a huge difference to their capacity to tell the story.
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Travelling museums are only one part of it, many community museums are too small or underresourced to handle travelling exhibits but would benefit from the skills and resources that a national museum has at it's finger tips, so to speak.
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Can we have some answers about how much new money is going into this venture? And how much is being reallocated by cutting elsewhere? And what is being cut and why?
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This is all great discussion, but we'd also like to get back to our questions...there are still 3 to go!
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I have heard it claimed that the new museum of history is limiting itself to the past 200 years. Is this true?
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Would a national museum be willing to sponsor a national tour or host exhibits developed by provinces and other regional museums who would not otherwise have the resources to display their exhibitions beyond their own local audiences?
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Clearly the most important thing is being there, in both a physical sense and in its program of work. Good use of web technologies helps. Working closely with the history academic community and high school history teachers (and textbook writers). Reaching into university history classes.
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While we're on the subject of national history networking. another piece of the puzzle is national historic sites. These are being starved of funds and most of them no longer have permanent interpretive staff. In fact they were set up to do a lot of the work that the new Museum of History is claiming to do with the advantage of being on the ground, so to speak. This is yet another reason why I am profoundly troubled by this exercise.
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There are virtual linkages that can be made, loans of artefacts. Also a national museum can help local museums identify holdings of more than local importance and link them into a national inventory.
