ICOM International Council of Museums - Museo Estancia Jesuitica ...

Maranda : Museology and History: A local Perspective
jungles and work camps, relief camps, sit-downs, strikes, and the Riot Act. On the
other side of the equation, there were those that accumulated wealth by acquiring
property made cheap from bank foreclosures and tax sales, and ‘rum running’ from
Canada to the United States during prohibition. Even some building projects went
ahead during tough times, while others were delayed. A somewhat incongruous display
unit features a hairdressing salon replete with a permanent wave / hair curling
contraption, a hair dryer, and ‘tools of the trade’.
“War” (referring to World War II) is represented by various units on such subjects as
the wartime housing crisis, women’s help in and service to the war effort, and the
affects of the war on the ‘home front’. A large unit with display cases, reconstructions
and photographic blowups, address the vibrancy of Vancouver’s Powell Street with its
sizeable Japanese population, with looks at the Maikawa department store, Japanese
food and businesses, including “Sewing for a Living”. The unit also addresses the long
battle for the just treatment of Japanese Canadians, including their service in the war,
their lack of the right to vote, their treatment as enemy aliens which resulted in them
being “Uprooted, Looted, and Interned” in camps in the interior of British Columbia, and
the restrictions they continued to endure even after the war ended.
Even though both ‘sets’ of permanent exhibition galleries (the 1950s / 1960s-1970s,
being one, and, the 1900s-1910s / 1020s-1940s being the other) differ in design style,
both have some important features in common. The thematic contents of both are
highly selective and by consequence, exclusionary. This fragmentation stems from the
predisposition of the museum and its personnel towards perceptions of what is
important or worthy of presentation. These presentations are anecdotes of events from
the past that are meant to evoke an ‘informed’ but nostalgic response from the
museum’s visitorship.
In addition, given that Vancouver is one of the most culturally diverse cities in North
America, no sense of this can be gleaned from the first set of exhibition galleries, and
while some mention is made of the Chinese population and there are minor references
to the East Indian minority, there is no acknowledgement of the local First Nations
(Aboriginal) peoples or of any other minority peoples of European, Latin American,
African, or Asian descent who, since the end of World War II, have been a growing part
of the fabric of the society. Further, local First Nations do not figure in the second set of
exhibition galleries except for a brief label indicating that work is underway with these
peoples for some inclusion in the 1910s-1920s gallery. Although there is an attempt to
incorporate other voices, the museum continues to pursue its own predisposition in its
course of promoting a linear version of ‘history’ over other forms of memory.
It is evident that the ‘history’ that is represented in museums is distinct from any
rigorous precepts of history. It is the reality that ‘historical’ representation in museums
is truly a form of nostalgia such that peoples of a locale can find satisfaction ‘identifying’
with the past on familiar terms. History requires a steady application of cause and
effect to explain the manifestation of an achieved end, or as the world knows, it is
victors who write histories, while it could be said that it is museums that house the
‘spoils’ of the past.
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