Collections and Inclusion: A Portrait of Museum Initiatives in Quebec and Ontario

Abstract

Today's museums seek to be more representative of the social diversity of the communities they serve. Their intention is reflected not only in the exhibitions and public programs they offer, but also in the development of their collections and their uses. The colonial origins of the collections and the gaps in the major art historical narratives that have provided their primary interpretations are more widely recognized. Several recent initiatives are revisiting, for inclusion purposes, the principles of exemplarity, uniqueness, internal organization, and material integrity on which acquisition and its valorization were until recently based. This chapter considers current initiatives undertaken over the past 10 years by the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, in the development and use of their collections. It is done by taking as support three strategies established by Maura Reilly (2018) to foster inclusion in exhibitions. These three strategies – areas of study, revisionism, polylogue – are loosely adapted for collections. The four museums were selected for (1) the interest of their initiatives, (2) the complementarity of these institutions, in terms of collecting scope (contemporary, national, or “encyclopedic”), institutional status (major museums, two provincial, one federal, one nonprofit) and location (in major cities, metropolis, or capital city), and their partnership in the “New Uses of Collections in Art Museums” Partnership (SSHRC 2021–2028) of the CIÉCO Research and Inquiry Group. This portrait, through the collections of four institutions, is paradigmatic of a fundamental transformation in Canadian art museums.

Citation

Boucher, M. (2024), "Collections and Inclusion: A Portrait of Museum Initiatives in Quebec and Ontario", Bérubé, J., Dioh, M.-L. and Cuyler, A.C. (Ed.) Accessibility, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Cultural Sector, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 135-150. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83753-034-220241020