The focus is on the family at the Royal BC Museum
FAMILY: BONDS AND BELONGINGS INCLUDES A DIVERSE ARRAY OF ITEMS FROM DOZENS OF FAMILIES SUCH AS PHOTOS, LETTERS AND TREASURED MEMENTOES
The cousins you reconnect with at every family reunion. The ancestor whose name and talents you proudly bear. Friends who love you. Neighbourhoods where you always feel at home. “Fur babies” that never let you down.
Whatever way you define family, you’ll find something that speaks to your personal experience of that powerful word at the Royal BC Museum’s moving new exhibition, Family: Bonds and Belonging. Built in-house by museum staff and designed to give visitors the feeling of walking into a photo album, the exhibit is a heartfelt and inclusive tribute to all the ways we connect to the people and places we love.
“All of us have different definitions of who our families are. Some of us don’t even like our biological families,” says Kathryn Bridge, curator of history and art at the Royal BC Museum. “So we really wanted to create an exhibition that anyone could relate to. We didn’t want something that was just about a traditional view of families, or only the grand old families of B.C. We saw this as a means to talk about the greater meaning of family, from historic to contemporary times.”
The exhibition, which is on through Oct. 31, brings together objects from over 137 families, including a number of unusual items from the museum’s collection (check out the quirky 19th century wreath that incorporates snippets of hair from 10 family members) along with a diverse array of new items donated or on loan from B.C. families approached by the museum to be part of the project. Wanting to ensure an inclusive interpretation of family, museum staff put much thought into the kinds of connections that forge a feeling of family. The exhibition is based on a concept of family, whether people define that by biology, choice, association (clubs, sporting activities) or place. “We’re hoping visitors will talk to each other, share their memories, remember their own families,” Bridge says.
Well-known families like that of B.C. industrialist James Dunsmuir are part of the exhibit, but so are lesser-known families, like that of Owechemis (Mrs. Kitty White), a Nuu-chah-nulth woman who donated a small collection of masks and headdresses to the museum in 1924. When she was very young, Owechemis was sent away from her northern Nuu-chah-nulth family to live with a different first nation to the south. She eventually settled in Sooke, but had lost touch with her siblings until her brother located her, and carved the Nuu-chahnulth regalia for her. Owechemis
died in 1930. Her descendants come regularly to the museum to see this collection and reconnect with their heritage.
Family: Bonds and Belonging is the brainchild of Royal BC Museum CEO Jack Lohman, who envisioned both the entrance, which summons the feeling of walking into a photo album, and a “grand wall” of portraits of the kind you might see at the Louvre. What grew out of the latter is a funky and fun floorto-ceiling display mixing classic portraiture with candid family moments through the ages.
The exhibition is one of the Royal BC Museum’s most interactive, inviting people to submit their own photos, record a story at the sound booth, or hang a message on the family tree. There’s also a family-friendly play area inside the exhibition where the kids can burn off energy while their parents linger over the rich trove of family memorabilia in all its forms, including a display of clothing encompassing all styles, multiple decades and numerous ethnicities.
Use the #RBCMFamily hashtag in your social media searches throughout the summer for news, videos and more on the exhibition.