This video recording from the Ontario Museum Association Annual Conference 2019 features Rick Hill speaking about a different type of Network – a connection to ancestral knowledge—in which the wisdom of the past can be understood through ongoing cultural practice, Museum collections, oral tradition, and academic scholarship. Mr. Hill discussed the colonial history of the creation of museum collections and archaeological praxis while promoting the repatriation of ancestral human remains. He explored the responsibilities of Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members and museum professionals while co-operating in museum curation and exhibition. Ultimately, Mr. Hill explained how the trust between Museums and Indigenous Peoples hinges on challenging people in a respectful way and allowing them to engage with culture through diverse perspectives. He argued this must be done through museums fostering Indigenous living history and moving beyond the sole focus of Western material acquisitions.
Rick Hill started working in museums in 1973 and has had a life-long addiction to helping museums tell Indigenous stories more accurately, more effectively, and more creatively. He started as a research assistant at the Buffalo and Erie County History Society in Buffalo, NY, and ended as the Assistant Director for Public Programs at the National Museum of the American Indian of the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, DC. Along the way, Mr. Hill worked at Indigenous cultural centres, including the Native-American Centre for the Living Arts, Niagara Falls, NY; and the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, Santa Fe, NM. He has been the visiting curator of numerous exhibitions in museums in the United States and Canada. Currently he is working on an exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art for the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Rick Hill is a member of the Beaver Clan of the Tuscarora Nation, residing at the Grand River Territory of the Haudenosaunee.
