First Peoples Past and Present Featured in Stunning Photographic Exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Civilization

During the early part of the twentieth century, staff anthropologists with the former Geological Survey of Canada (precursor of the CMC) studied the ways of North American First Peoples. Ranging across the continent from British Columbia to Oklahoma, men like F. W. Waugh, Charles Marius Barbeau, Francis Knowles and Harlan Smith recorded languages, histories, activities and ways of life in writing and through photography.

In examining the photographic record, guest curator Jeffrey Thomas — a noted photographer himself — was struck by the portraits of First Peoples taken by the four anthropologists. Dubbing this subgenre "fieldwork portraiture," Thomas felt it went beyond a mere anthropological record — providing evidence of the real people behind stereotypical depictions of the North American Indian of the time.

"It became clear to me," says Thomas, "that the CMC anthropologists had been just as interested in capturing the humanity of the people they photographed as they were in recording activities like snowshoe-making and basketweaving. Given that ancestry is an important part of who we are as First Peoples, it seemed to me that these photographs provided an interesting window to the past. By juxtaposing them with the works of contemporary First Peoples artists, it became easy to see how the past often informs the present in both artistic and cultural terms."

The exhibition features more than seventy historical photographs, as well as contemporary photographic-based works by Shelley Niro, Greg Staats, Mary Anne Barkhouse, Greg Hill, Rosalie Favell and Barry Ace. Coming out of an artistic renaissance which began in the early 1980s, the works of all six First Peoples artists speak, in this exhibition, to issues of community and continuity and the influence of ancestry and family history on who we become.

This influence becomes particularly apparent when the exhibition places historical and contemporary works side by side. Are You My Sister, for example, sets an early twentieth-century photograph by F. W. Waugh next to a portrait by contemporary artist Shelley Niro, clearly demonstrating the links between past and present.

"The images in this exhibition truly dazzle," says Joe Geurts, Acting President and CEO of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. "We are used to seeing our archival photographs in a purely anthropological context — recording elements like clothing, activities, homes and ways of life. In studying this rich collection, Mr. Thomas has indeed discovered a new way of looking at the photographic record."

Opening on October 23, 1999, Emergence from the Shadow: First Peoples' Photographic Perspectives will be presented until January 2, 2001 in the Art Gallery of the First Peoples Hall of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

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Created: October 18, 1999. Last update: July 24, 2001 © Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation

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