Möbius Museology: Curating and Critiquing the Multiversity Galleries at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia

This chapter reflects on the process, product, and reception of collaborative curation at the UBC Museum of Anthropology's new visible storage galleries by discussing the reinstallation of Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuxalk collections. The metaphor of the Mobius strip explains how collaborative museology entails mutual engagements and processual relations, and makes clear the futility of asking who is in front of and who is behind the museum display case glass. What is on display is the relationships between curators, community members, and critics. As a consequence, the museum becomes a potentially potent location for the assertion of social status and cultural knowledge. In fact, it is these acts of cultural translation and mistranslation, legitimizing of community values, and claims to authority that are being exhibited. Reception and critique feed into curation and representation, making the space of the museum engendering as well as portraying. Keywords: collaborative curation; Indigenous peoples; Kwakwaka'wakw; Mobius museology; Nuxalk; visible storage