海角社区

My name is Kadia St-Pierre, and I am a first-year History and Anthropology student with a minor in Russian Cultural Studies. I am very passionate about my fields of study and constantly searching for opportunities to expand my knowledge and meet people who will challenge me and expose me to new ideas and perspectives. I was immediately interested in the AIO and the opportunities that it

could provide me; still, being a U0 student, I was intimidated. I did not seriously consider getting an internship until I met Professor Peter Johansen, who assured me that I could apply and offered to help me find an internship. I am very interested in material culture and museums, so this is where we focused our search for internships. After many unsuccessful inquiries and ideas, I was fortunate enough to find an internship that was a perfect fit for me. I attended a lecture at Concordia given by Dr. Erell Hubert, the curator of pre-Colombian art at The Montreal Museum of Fine Art. I really enjoyed the lecture, and after discussing it with Professor Johansen, he set up a meeting with her. After this meeting, Dr. Hubert agreed to take me as an intern as she had a role that was a perfect fit for me and my interests.

I strongly believe that Indigenous voices and perspectives are essential when working with American collections and history. Historically, these voices have been ignored, leading to a critical gap in our understanding of American history. I am very interested in working to bridge this gap, and this is precisely what I had the opportunity to do. During my internship, I conducted research on many key pieces in the North American Indigenous collection. First, I researched their provenance, and then I researched the meaning, history, and significance of each piece. This is all significant information that the museum lacked on many of the pieces in its collection. I then created many annotated bibliographies with my research and all my sources. As my internship was only two months, I wanted to make sure that my work could be easily understood and continued. These bibliographies give future people easy access to all the sources and work I have done so that it may be continued by others with ease.

Because of the limited information the museum had on the Indigenous collection, I had to do a lot of research in archives and collections outside of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, many of which were not open to the public. This was a challenge, but after reading and contacting people at other academic institutions, I was able to find several pieces of relevant information. Poor documentation at the time of acquisition was also a large issue for me. Many pieces were miscategorized and listed as being from the incorrect Indigenous group. It was my job to find out what group they were originally from. An example of this is when I was given two baskets listed as 鈥淪alish鈥� to research. After much research, I found no relevant information about them. I was frustrated until I started doing research on other Indigenous basketry on the West Coast and discovered they were not Salish but rather Wasco. After this discovery, I found the relevant information about the baskets that I was searching for.

Throughout my internship, I had many exciting opportunities, such as a tour of the temporary Georgia O鈥橩eeffe and Henry Moore exhibit given by the curator, early access to the temporary Flemish art exhibit, and a trip to a gallery opening at the botanical garden. Additionally, some of the labels I wrote might be used in the new decorative arts exhibit at the museum!

I want to sincerely thank the Richard and Lynne Kaiser Family Foundation for this opportunity. I have had the chance to sharpen my research skills and gain a deeper understanding of contemporary issues in Indigenous museum collections. This internship has continued to fuel my passion and interest in these areas.