[BCMA] The City Talks: Viviane Gosselin, "Civilizing the (Civic) Museum: Decolonial Work at the Museum of Vancouver" (Feb. 29)

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv]

*THE CITY TALKS*



*Spring 2024*



*Museums in the City: Rethinking Colonial Urban Pasts*



*Organized by the UVic Committee for Urban Studies*


*February 29*



*Civilizing the (Civic) Museum: Decolonial Work at the Museum of Vancouver*



Viviane Gosselin, Director of Collections and Exhibitions, Museum of
Vancouver



Thursday, February 29, 7:30pm-9:00pm, PST, virtual event (Zoom)



To register for this virtual event, click here
<https://uvic.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEpf-GrrjwvH9f5CZvIwMf_Z--fkrlaBgLw>
.





*Abstract*



For decades, marginalized communities, public intellectuals and academic
scholars have called out museums for their role in reinforcing – wittingly
or unwittingly – colonial attitudes, racial and social inequality,
environmental disconnect and excessive consumption. In response to these
criticisms and accompanied by much soul searching, (many) museums are
deliberately leveraging their power as cultural influencers to make space
for stories that challenge dominant narratives of progress and belonging
(and not belonging). The Museum of Vancouver (MOV) has adopted models of
co-creation and prioritizes community-led initiatives to pursue this goal.
These practices support broader and more inclusive ways of conceiving the
city’s past, present and future. This presentation will draw on examples of
work at MOV to discuss how valuing and representing diverse knowledge,
histories and experiences of the city in the museum space can help build
more resilient communities.



*Bio*



Viviane Gosselin is the *Director of Collections & Exhibitions, and Curator
of Contemporary Culture* at the Museum of Vancouver. Her work on historical
and environmental literacy seeks to make the museum a more responsive,
empathetic, and democratic public space that prompts people to recognize
their own capacity to effect positive social change. Viviane has led and
co-curated several exhibitions that have been recognized nationally and
internationally. She has authored several articles on participatory
museology and intercultural curation and is co-editor of *Museums and the
Past: Constructing Historical Consciousness* (UBC Press). Viviane is
currently involved in developing sustainable exhibition design practices
with a team of city staff, architects and designers committed to creating a
no-waste city. Rather than talking about radical innovation, she prefers to
focus on the power of small wins as a mean of furthering the social work of
museums.⁠ Viviane is a member of the advisory group of the Coalition of
Museums for Climate Justice. Since 2019, she has been a member of the
Advisory Group for the Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice. Viviane
earned her PhD at the University of British Columbia.



[image: A poster of a person Description automatically generated]

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Run by the Committee for Urban Studies at the University of Victoria, The
City Talks is a free public lecture series featuring distinguished scholars
drawn from the University of Victoria, across Canada, and beyond.



For more information, see https://citytalks.ca





*Royal Roads acknowledges the campus is located on the traditional Lands of
the Lekwungen-speaking Peoples, the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.*

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