Paper short abstract:

Before Reconciliation comes Truth. How can an institution make colonizing actions and actors visible within records, databases, policies, and budget lines? This paper provides examples of shifts in everyday museum practices as first steps towards institutional truth telling.

Paper long abstract:

Before Reconciliation comes Truth. This paper visits the everyday actions that museum workers can undertake to address the truths of their collections and institutional histories. Given the calls to action from Indigenous museum professionals within Canada in recent years, and enshrined in the articles and calls from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Canadian Museum Association’s Move To Action Report, every individual working within a museum has obligations and responsibilities to decolonization. Creating hospitable environments for Indigenous staff, researchers, and communities requires listening, acting with transparency, and resourcing as a mechanism of restitution. What would it look like for an institution to define the colonizing strategies used historically and today to enact and maintain diasporas of belonging(s)? How can an institution make those actions and actors visible? How can truths become that ever-trending word--accessible--within records, databases, policies and budget lines? This paper looks at some projects undertaken at Princeton University Art Museum and at the Royal BC Museum in British Columbia to evaluate everyday labour within museums and how shifting simple practices might provide a first step towards institutional truth telling.