Vancouver has one more thing to boast about this spring as its civic museum, the Museum of Vancouver, brings home its second Canadian Museum Association award in just three years.
The MOV — which rebranded and refocused its vision in 2009 and won the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Management in 2010 as a result — used that forward momentum to develop the multi-faceted and highly collaborative exhibition called Bhangra.me, which ran from May 5, 2011 to January 1, 2012. Last week at the Canadian Museum Association annual awards night, the team behind Bhangra.me was awarded Outstanding Achievement for best project in the Education Category.
Bhangra.me followed the MOV’s new model of telling Vancouver focused stories, and was a robust educational program designed to examine bhangra music as a cultural, artistic, and political phenomenon in Vancouver. It was comprised of original research and collections of costumes, instruments, interviews, a temporary exhibition, musical concerts, public programming, and interactive social technologies. It was completed in collaboration with the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration Society (VIBC).
Vancouverites can still see a slideshow of the exhibition, related photos and videos on the Museum of Vancouver’s website (www.museumofvancouver.ca).
The MOV will continue to bring Vancouver innovative, contemporary, and sometimes contentious exhibitions. This fall we’ll house the first solo exhibition of the recently deceased artist/designer Tobias Wong in, followed by an educational exploration of all things sex in Sex Talk in the City, opening in 2013.
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The Museum of Vancouver is an independent non-profit organization which holds a mirror to the city and leads provocative conversations about its past, present, and future.