Bard Graduate Center Gallery
February 13 – July 7, 2019

U’mista Cultural Centre
July 20 – October 26, 2019

Curated by Aaron Glass, Bard Graduate Center

Graphic and conceptual designs by multimedia artist Corrine Hunt, great-granddaughter of George Hunt

The exhibition was organized by Bard Graduate Center (New York, NY, USA) and U’mista Cultural Centre  (Alert Bay, BC, Canada), with support provided by donors to Bard Graduate Center. Special thanks to the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts, Donald Ellis, Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic Artisan Fund, the Government of Canada (Canadian Heritage), and the Rock Foundation for support of the exhibition at the U’mista Cultural Centre.

Bard Graduate Center Gallery Listing (with associated public events and exhibit press):
https://www.bgc.bard.edu/gallery/exhibitions/88/the-story-box

Bard Graduate Center Focus Project team and exhibitions staff:
Ivan Gaskell, Head of Focus Project
Aaron Glass, Acting Head of Focus Gallery Project (2018-19)
Nina Stritzler-Levine, Gallery Director
Marianne Lamonaca, Associate Gallery Director and Chief Curator
Caroline Hannah, Associate Curator
Kate DeWitt, Art Director
Eric Edler, Exhibitions Registrar
Laura Grey, Graphic Design
Alex Gruen, Chief Preparator
Daniel Lee, Director of Publishing
Jesse Merandy, Director of the Digital Media Lab
Alexis Mucha, Manager of Rights and Reproductions
Ciné Ostrow, Exhibition Design
Emily Reilly, Director of Public Programs

U’mista Cultural Centre exhibition staff:
Sarah E. Holland, Executive Director
Juanita Johnston, Collections & Tourism Manager
Trevor Isaac, Education and Collections Assistant

Website Credits

Primary site author and editor: Aaron Glass
Additional authors: Laura Allen, Tobah Aukland-Peck, Tessa Goldsher, Emily Hayflick, Lillia McEnaney, Leela Outcalt, Sarah Reetz, Avery Schroeder, Sophie Swanson, Amanda Thompson, Leonie Treier, and Shuning Wang
Site design: Jesse Merandy
Background page design: Corrine Hunt
Site production: Jesse Merandy and Emily Hayflick
Additional editors: Sarah Holland, Helen Polson, Aldona Jonaitis, Caroline Hannah
Images and permissions: Alexis Mucha and Emily Hayflick
Videos and interactives: Jesse Merandy
Maps: Jocelyn Lau

Boas 1897 Critical Edition Project Team

Judith Berman, William Cranmer, Erin Eisenbarth, Andy Everson, Zahava Friedman-Stadler, Aaron Glass, Rainer Hatoum, Sarah Holland, Corrine Hunt, Trevor Isaac, Ira Jacknis, Juanita Johnston, and Barbara Taranto. Many team members generously contributed to the development of this exhibition and website. 

The 1897 Critical Edition project has been generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the School for Advanced Research/National Science Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies.

ABOUT BARD GRADUATE CENTER FOCUS PROJECTS

Focus Projects are part of an innovative program organized and led by faculty members or postdoctoral fellows through seminars and workshops that culminate in small-scale, academically rigorous exhibitions and publications. Students, assisted by the Center’s professional staff of curators, designers, and media specialists, are closely involved from genesis through execution and contribute to each project’s form and content. The Focus Project promotes experimentation in display, interpretation, and the use of digital media, reflecting the Center’s commitment to exhibitions as integral to scholarly activity.

Bard Graduate Center Gallery organizes pioneering exhibitions on decorative arts, design history, and material culture, with leading scholars, curators, and institutions worldwide. We provide opportunities for faculty and students to gain experience as curators in exhibition making. Our projects and publications break down traditional barriers between academic and curatorial forms of inquiry. We offer our visitors a thought-provoking experience in an intimate townhouse setting on Manhattan’s Upper West Side (www.bgc.bard.edu).

Bard Graduate Center respectfully acknowledges our presence in Lenapehoking—the ancestral homeland of the Lenni-Lenape—and recognizes New York City as a past, present, and future crossroads for many Indigenous people.

ABOUT THE U’MISTA CULTURAL CENTRE

The U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay, British Columbia, tells an epic story of resistance and resilience. The potlatch ceremony was banned in Canada between 1884 and 1951. Potlatch masks and other regalia housed at U’mista were all surrendered under duress to the police after a potlatch in 1921 hosted by Chief Dan Cranmer. After the ban was lifted, the Kwakwaka’wakw people negotiated for decades for the return of their sacred regalia that had ended up in museum and private collections around the world. Most of the regalia have come home and are preserved and shared at the U’mista Cultural Centre, where it now constitutes the most complete and important collection of its type in the world and is a source of great joy and pride for the Kwakwaka’wakw and North Vancouver Island communities (www.umista.ca).

U’mista Cultural Centre is located on the territory of the ’Namgis First Nation.