The Musée de la Civilisation in Québec

What I remember most from my visit to the Musée de la Civilisation in 2009 was a fragment from a documentary, showing a young aboriginal woman shouting out her rights. She and her family were stopped at a checkpoint they needed to pass to go to their hunting territory. With the legal papers in her hands and proclaiming their rights, she prevented others from passing through until they were allowed to cross the checkpoint. This documentary of Arthur Lamothe made quite an impression on me and, with me, on many visitors  I suppose. It is part of the 'Encounters with the First Nations’ permanent exhibition on the eleven aboriginal nations of Québec. The whole approach of the exhibition is based on emotions, revolving around issues of identity, economic interest, political power and identity. The staff of the Musée de la Civilisation is currently making plans to  rearrange this exhibition, in collaboration with the Aboriginal communities, for it is already over ten years old and can use some updating. However, the 'Encounters with the First Nations’ exhibition shows that already ten years ago, the Musée de la Civilisation in Québec established itself as an institution where high standing museological techniques were used to put forward  a specific message .

In the permanent exhibition 'The People of Québec, Now and Then’, 400 years of social and political history are synthesised, using objects, audio fragments and film, arranged along chronological time lines. The exhibition ends with a documentary on life after the Quiet Revolution (by Benoît Pilon), framing the everyday reality  in the context of the socio-political changes since the '60s. The close collaboration with the Office Nationale du Film du Canada is visible throughout the museum, which is a real asset in illustrating the complicated string of events of the past forty years. I recently paid the museum another visit and currently, one of the temporary exhibitions focuses on 'Radio-Canada. A Story to Follow’. With this exhibition, the museum frames the role of the public broadcaster, which “marked, and even transformed, the daily lives of French speakers in Québec and across Canada” (http://www.mcq.org/en/mcq/expositions.php).

Although the name of the museum might suggest otherwise, the main focus of the Musée de la Civilisation is on local history. On aboriginal culture on the one hand and on the history of French speaking Canada on the other. The huge museum offers a mix of different temporary exhibitions,  (homemade and travelling)   on themes ranging from  science  to ancient Rome. However the exhibitions are often related to the history of the Québecois. Since the Quiet Revolution, the history of the French speaking Canadians, their identity and their position within Canada are highly debated  issues. The location of the museum in Vieux-Québec, near Place Royale, where the first permanent French settlement was founded in the beginning of the seventeenth century, is certainly symbolic. With the fierce debates on identity, sovereignty and territory in French speaking Canada, The Musee de Civilization is a perfect reminder  that the representation of history is always about present-day society.