Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Visiting the Museum of Anthropology

Dear All,

I hope you enjoyed your visit to the Museum of Anthropology. Please feel free to tell us about the piece of art that impressed you most and that you spent some time with in close conversation. What did it/he/she tell you? Did you get the chance to listen to his/her/its story? Did you have an interesting - and/or a funny - conversation with him/her/it? If so, please feel free to share all this (or any of it) here. Or, if you prefer, do some research about the piece in question and about the culture it belongs to and tell us about that.

Thank you!
Gudrun

The photo shows Bill Reid's Raven and the First Humans in the Bill Reid Rotunda at the MOA.


11 comments:

  1. One of the pieces of art that impressed me the most was a feather headdress. The way it was constructed amazed me. It reminded me off a lion's mane because it adds to the size of the wearer. The headdress displays the wearer's power and status. After doing some research on it I found out that feather headdresses were originally made only by First Nations in the Great Plains and worn at ceremonies by chiefs. Another interesting fact I came across was that each feather in the headdress was awarded to the warrior for an act of bravery. Once there were enough feathers they were made into a headdress. So for each feather there is a story to tell.
    Some links if you want to read more:
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_bonnet
    http://www.native-languages.org/headdresses.htm

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  2. I found the museum incredibly interesting. I was amazed by the sheer amount of pieces in the collection. One piece in particular that struck me was Cedar Man, a huge wooden carving of a man done by Joe David. From doing some research on the piece and the carver, I found that David said that cedar is used to carve with because it is the tree of life. I found this very interesting because so many carvings in the museum, including Cedar Man, are carved from cedar and are of living things. The carving is very large and seemed exert knowledge. The intricate way in which the carving was shaped is very impressive The piece is very expressive. Despite it being wood I felt like it was alive and had emotions.

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  3. The most interesting pieces that I saw were the variety of masks from different cultures. Whether it was the Japanese Noh theatre masks or the indigenous voodoo style masks, they all seemed to say something about human nature. I felt like they emphasized on the dynamism of our state of mind (masks) that are constantly changing depending on the situation we are in. It is as if we are all actors going through life, constantly changing faces,lost deeply in the roles that we play, that we forgot who we really are. What happens when we take off every mask? Who knows?

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  4. Something that came up was the close resemblance between the Chinese and Japanese cultures. Many items were significantly similar in appearance. This makes us wonder how the two countries diverged from a common ancestor.

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  5. This was my second time visiting the museum of anthropology. I went for the first time back in grade five and I didn’t really have a true understanding of the museum and its importance. The most important memory from my grade five trip was the fact that it was the first field trip my dad ever came on which was a pretty big deal back in the day. This second time around going there I was able to truly understand its value and I am so thankful I went back. The visit really touched me. I made new connections to so many different pieces and was amazed at the history that the museum held. I gained a better knowledge of the artifacts. The biggest thing that struck me though was the area dedicated to the residential schools. I went with a friend and neither of us was able to hold our emotions as we read the testimonies and looked at photos. So many emotions ran through me during the time I was in there. I felt so much sorrow for their pain. I wanted to go back in time and take them out of the situation and give them all hugs and make it better. I could never imagine going through something so awful. The ones that got me the most were the ones that were so young and thought being abused was normal and that they deserved it. No person should ever be subjected to such horrible treatment especially not because they are of a different culture. I had tears running down my eyes reading those testimonies and the more I read the more my heart broke. To be honest I never really paid attention or cared about the residential school until I was in that room. It’s made me want to get more involved and I am so thankful we had a field trip. I have never been so emotionally affected by something like I was in those moments. I was so struck by what I saw that I even left a message on the blackboard with thoughts and love for the victims. They may never read it but it felt like in that moment I was really talking to them as I wrote it. I definitely plan on going back and spending more time learning.

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    1. Hi, Desha. Although I didn't have much time to stay in the museum to see the piece about victims was in residential school, but when I see your comments it reminded me what I learned at grade 9 in the social studies class. It was the part which touches my emotion the most in the whole text book.

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  6. I still remember when I was in elementary and i went to visit this museum for the first time. I was amazed by all the stories that were told and all the fascinating relics that were being shown. As a kid, I was amazed but never really understood the stories each relic held. Upon visiting the museum again, it let me relive part of my childhood and understand the meaning behind each story told. This museum amazes me with the endless stories it holds and the influential power each story contains.

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  7. This is the first museum I visited in Vancouver. Honestly, it was a really interesting trip. There are so many interesting pieces, the more amazing ones are the stories behind it.  Whenever, I look at those pieces again either online or go to the museum again, all of those stories will come to my mind directly. These pieces leave the memories to us, and sometimes it even teaches us some life lessons, it is really great. Also, I agree with Winnie's opinion as well. As a person who has Chinese background, I do feel it resembles some Asian cultures as well. And I think the masks could show this at most as Richard mentioned above. The masks look so amazing, it attracts most of my attention as well.

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  8. Hi All,

    Excellent observations! Thanks for telling the rest of us about your experiences at the MOA!

    g

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  9. It has been a while since I went to MOA. I made up a story for the Raven's Mask.In this dark night, people had all gone to sleep. One man was still fishing in this giant lake. Suddenly a monster was hooked by this fisherman; he didn’t back down, he was prepared to fight. However, the water monster sprayed its unknown poisonous liquid to this fisherman. The fisherman was very bold and confront the spray; suddenly he lost his eye sight. Right at this moment, a huge raven appeared and crashed on this monster. The monster died. To memorize this strong warrior, people carved two large round eyes on the raven.

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    1. Very interesting story, Leon! Thanks for sharing!

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