BC Museums Association Announces Winners of 2018 Outstanding Achievement Awards
/The following is excerpted from a release issued by the BCMA.
Mayne Island Museum. | Image: BritishColumbia.com.
The BC Museums Association (BCMA) handed out its Awards for Outstanding Achievement October 24 in Kelowna as part of its annual conference. The BCMA annual awards recognize institutions and individuals who exemplify excellence in the province’s museums, galleries and history community.
The winners include:
The Nikkei National Museum received the Award of Merit, Excellence in Community Engagement for its commemorative programming, exhibits and publications marking the 75th anniversary of Japanese Canadian Internment and the 30th anniversary of Japanese Canadian Redress. The Museum worked closely with survivors and their descendants of both detainment/internment locations, as well as helped rally the community to obtain official highway signage denoting spots of significance.
The Reach Gallery Museum in Abbotsford received the Award of Merit, Excellence in Exhibitions for its Grand Theft Terra Firma exhibit by artists David Campion and Sandra Shields. The exhibit combines popular culture, namely gaming and humour, with original source material to consider colonization specific to the experiences in S’ólh Téméxw, now commonly known as the Fraser Valley.
The Mayne Island Museum went home with the Award of Merit, Excellence in Collections for the John Aitken glass plate negative digitization project, which preserved more than 300 historical images of 19th and early 20th century Mayne Island and made them available online as high-resolution images.
Several individuals were also recognized for their extraordinary contributions.
Marl Brown, Curator, Fort Nelson Heritage Museum, received the Distinguished Service Award for his passion and dedication to founding, maintaining and growing the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum. As a mechanic with the Canadian army, Brown started collecting items in the 1950s with the intent of preserving the past for future generations. He founded the Fort Nelson Historical Society in 1977 and worked tirelessly to eventually open the museum in 1987. At 86 years young, he is still the first person at the museum in the morning and the last one to leave at night.
Sherri Robinson, a volunteer at the Esquimalt Municipal Archives, received the Museum Service and Stewardship Award for her extensive knowledge of the community of Esquimalt and for her dedication to the documentation and preservation of the municipality’s history.
Rachael Bell-Irving, Curriculum Programs Coordinator, Ocean Wise, received the Innovation Award for her work on education.ocean.org. This online learning space inspires the global community to increase its understanding, wonder and connection to our oceans. The Innovation Award is generously sponsored by NGX Interactive.
A full list of winners, honourable mentions and nominees is available at museumsassn.bc.ca.
