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Lynn Hill was curator-in-residence at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia from ca. 1998-2000, and curated the exhibit “Raven’s Reprise” (January 2000-January 2001). She is a member of the Iroquois Confederacy from the Six Nations of the Grand River and was born in Hamilton, Ontario. Hill has curated various contemporary First Nations art exhibitions, including The Traveling Alter Native Medicine Show (Vancouver, 1999), LICK (Toronto, 1997), Godi’nigoha’: The Woman’s Mind (Brantford, 1997), and AlterNative: Contemporary Photo Compositions (Toronto/Ottawa, 1995-1996). She is a founding member of the artist collective LICK and of the ALA curatorial collective.

Kersti Krug is a researcher and writer in the field of non-profit management, and a former Director of Communications and Manager of Research and Evaluation at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

Before joining MOA, Krug was Senior Personnel Advisor to the Auditor General of Canada (1980) and Assistant Director of the National Gallery of Canada (1980-1988). Between 1991 and 1997, she worked for the UBC Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration as a researcher, instructor, and Acting Director of the Arts Administration Option.

In 1990, Krug began work at MOA. Her first position at MOA was Director of Communications (1990-1998); subsequently, she occupied the roles of Manager of Research and Evaluation (1998-2001) and director of the Certificate in Museum Studies program (1997-1998). Her work at MOA involved program development and organizational change management. Major projects included creating marketing projects, conducting visitor studies, co-creation and development of the Certificate in Museum Studies program, project management for the expansion of the MOA building, developing business plans, and grant writing.

During this period, Krug was also director of studies for an interdisciplinary graduate program in critical curatorial studies in the Faculty of Arts (1998-2001). After leaving MOA in 2001, Krug joined the Faculty of Graduate Studies as Assistant Dean, Strategic Planning and Communications (2001-2006). She was instrumental in the 2007 founding of the College for Interdisciplinary Studies, of which she became Assistant Principal, Strategic Development and Administration. Krug retired form this position in 2009 to work as a consultant.

Krug completed her MBA at UBC in 1990, and in 1999 received her PhD from UBC’s Individual Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program. Her thesis on managing administrative change in MOA is entitled “A hypermediated ethnography of organizational change: conversations in the Museum of Anthropology.”

Anthony Shelton served as the Director of the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) from August 2004 through June 2021. A researcher, curator, teacher and administrator, his interests include Latin American, Iberian and African visual cultures, Surrealism, the history of collecting, and critical museology. Before coming to UBC he held curatorial positions at the British Museum, The Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery and Museum’s Brighton, the Horniman Museum, London, and academic appointments at the University of Sussex, University College, London and the University of Coimbra. He has been the Portuguese representative to ASEMUS (Asia-Europe Museums Network), and sat on the international advisory boards for the construction and development of the Humboldt Forum, Berlin and the Asian Cultural Complex, Gwangju.

Dr. Shelton has published extensively in the areas of visual culture, critical museology, history of collecting and various aspects of Mexican cultural history. His works include Art, Anthropology, and Aesthetics (with J. Coote eds. 19, 1992); Museums and Changing Perspectives of Culture (1995); Fetishism: Visualizing Power and Desire (1995); Collectors: Individuals and Institutions (2001); Collectors: Expressions of Self and Others (2001).

Dr. Shelton curated two acclaimed exhibitions at MOA: Luminescence: The Silver of Peru and Heaven, Hell and Somewhere In Between: Portuguese Popular Art. He also launched an award-winning publication series with Figure 1 Publishing, authoring several of its titles, including the recently published Under Different Moons: African Art in Conversation and Theatrum Mundi: Masks and Masquerades in Mexico and the Andes. He helped to expand MOA’s African, European and Latin American collections. He also developed strong relationships with consulates, created an external advisory board, and secured funding for postdoctoral curatorial fellows.

Dr. Shelton received Doctorate and Masters degrees from Oxford University, and a Bachelors degree from the University of Hull.

Alfred James Hanuse was born in Alert Bay to hereditary Chief Harry Hanuse and Mary Deborah Charlie. His siblings included: Lucy Marion (Adawis) Hanuse, Annie Laura Hanuse, George Harry Hanuse, Alice Ethel Hanuse, Alexander Hanuse, Daniel Edgar Hanuse, Frederick Clarence Hanuse, Florence Eleanor Hanuse, Wilfred Hanuse, and Stella Mae Hanuse. Alfred married Mary Hanuse (nee Alfred) and Alfred James (Jack) Hanuse on February 22, 1935. From: https://issuu.com/umista/docs/winter_2012

Alver Tait is a Nisga’a (Gitlaxdamix) carver and hereditary Chief of the Eagle-Beaver clan. Tait carved many poles raised in the Nass Valley and assisted with the carving of two red cedar canoes in 1980, with his brother Norman Tait who taught him to carve. He also worked with Norman on the Beaver Pole that was raised at the Field Museum in Chicago. In recognition of his craftsmanship, Tait was selected by the City of Vancouver to carve a Nisga’a Eagle bowl, which was later presented to Queen Elizabeth II. He was also asked by the British Museum to restore a pole carved in the 1860s, which was originally a monument to his great-great grandfather, Luuya’as, carrying the Eagle-Beaver crest image. In 2006, he received the Order of British Columbia.

Chief Mungo Martin or Nakapenkem (lit. Potlatch chief "ten times over"), Datsa (lit. "grandfather"), was an important figure in Northwest Coast style art, specifically that of the Kwakwaka'wakw Aboriginal people who live in the area of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. He was a major contributor to Kwakwaka'wakw art, especially in the realm of wood sculpture and painting. He was also known as a singer and songwriter.

Mungo Martin was an important figure in the early history of the Museum of Anthropology. In 1950 and 1951 he worked for the University of British Columbia restoring and carving totem poles. These later stood in Totem Park at UBC and some were later moved into the great hall in the Museum of Anthropology. After this time he is best known for his work at Thunderbird Park in Victoria, where he helped to carve many of the totem poles and house posts that now stand in the park. He worked with several artists who became well-known including Bill Reid, Doug Cranmer, and Henry Hunt.

Chief William Jeffrey was a hereditary Tsimshian Chief, born in 1899 near Lax Kw'alaams, British Columbia. Alongside Chief William Beynon and two others, he co-founded the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia in 1931. In 1940 he appeared before the House of Commons to advocate improvements to Indigenous education, the recognition of Indigenous rights, and the decriminalization of the potlach. In 1953 Jeffrey became a minister of Jehovah's Witnesses. Jeffrey began carving totem poles and replicas in 1960.

Governor General of Canada from January 14, 1974 - January 22, 1979.

Canadian politician, in office 1965 - 1979.

President of UBC, 1975 - 1983.

Mrs. Yau Chan Shek-ying was born in 1923 in Sheung Kwai Chung village, Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong. She was married at the age of 12, to Yau Shui-cheung, of Kwan Mun Hau village, Tsuen Wan. After her marriage she did heavy manual labour, such as going up into the mountains to cut grass and pine branches for fuel, farming the family's fields and raising pigs, and earning wages for the family by carrying kerosene and other heavy materials at the Texaco Oil Depot. It was during this heavy labour that Mrs. Yau learned mountain songs, both learned from other women and improvised. In 1976 and 1984, Mrs. Yau sang these songs to be recorded by Canadian anthropologist Elizabeth Lominska Johnson. She had eight children, several of which immigrated to Canada. Mrs. Yau began suffering serious health problems in early middle age, for which she was required to undergo kidney surgery. In the 1990s her health declined, and she passed away in 1996.

Minn Sjolseth was born on November 4, 1919 in Oksendahl, Norway. Sjolseth started to draw and paint in early childhood, and began her formal artistic training in Norway and in Germany where she studied the Old Masters. In 1953, Sjolseth emigrated to Canada and continued her studies at the Regina School of Fine Arts with Kenneth Lockheed. She also studied graphic art at San Miguel de Allende Art Institute in Mexico.

Sjolseth settled in Vancouver, BC in 1957, where she opened a commercial gallery and began her career as a portrait artist. During this time, she also had two children, Laila and Fred Johnsen. In 1967 she closed the gallery and focused her artistic practice on documenting Indigenous peoples and their cultural productions in a realist tradition. In 1968, Sjolseth married the photographer and journalist Anthony Carter. Out of their travels to First Nations communities along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Sjolseth produced a number of landscape and portrait paintings as part of her "North West Coast Native" series, while Carter undertook work for his books. In 2009, the Kamloops Art Gallery held an exhibition entitled "Somewhere Between" which explored Minn Sjolseth's and Anthony Carter's artistic partnership during this period.

In 1974, Sjolseth had the opportunity to travel to Arctic Norway and work with the reindeer-herding Lapps (also known as Sami people) to create a series of paintings called "Reflection of Lapland" which was shown at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, among other institutions. In July 1977, she was selected as the only professional artist to be a member of the media accredited to the visit of H.R.H The Prince of Wales to Southern Alberta to commemorate the Centennial of the signing of Treaty 7. Sjolseth's work has been exhibited in juried group shows in Canada and the United States, as well as international solo exhibitions. Her paintings are in several international collections, including the collections of the Crown Prince Harald of Norway.

Sjolseth and Carter moved to the Kamloops area of British Columbia in 1980, first living at Pinantan Lake and later at Lac Le Jeune. She continued painting, creating the "British Columbia Interior" series, while also pursuing cross-country marathon skiing competitively.

Sjolseth died suddenly in a car accident in Lac Le Jeune on November 7th, 1995.

Martine J. Reid (née de Widerspach-Thor) was born in France. After completing her Master’s thesis on the role of salmon on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Kwakwaka'wakw communities, she moved to British Columbia. While studying at the University of British Columbia, she started learning Kwakwala from Katherine Ferry Adams, who introduced her to the language and culture and adopted her into her family in 1978.
From 1976 to 1978 she attended several potlatches in the area of Alert Bay (BC). There, she came in contact with Kwakwakka’wakw communities, which would lead her to write and defend her doctoral dissertation about the Kwakwakka’wakw hamaca (Man-Eater) ritual in 1981.
In the 1970s, Dr. Reid received funding from the Urgent Ethnology Program of the Museum of Man in Ottawa to record languages and customs to prevent their loss. As part of this project, Dr. Reid came in contact with Agnes Alfred (or Axuw or Axuwaw) with whom she travelled to different Kwakwakka’wakw communities. As part of these visits, she met Agnes’ granddaughter, Daisy Sewid-Smith.
Between 1979 and 1980, and in 1983 and 1985 Sewid-Smith and Reid recorded and translated Agnes’ memoirs. From then until the late 1990s, they put a hold in their project for personal and work-related reasons. In the late 1990s, they resumed their work, which lead to the publication of Paddling to Where I Stand in 2004.
Between 1979 and 1983, Dr. Reid worked at the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. There, she lectured in the areas of Anthropology, Ethnography, and First Nations studies. She also participated in several art-related projects in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, while consulting projects for the Ministry of Indian and Northern Affairs and for the Native Investment Trade Association.
From 2008 to 2012, Dr. Reid was the Director of Content and Research, and Curator at the Bill Reid Gallery. Then, she became the Honorary Chair of the Bill Reid Foundation.

William Beynon, Nisga'a hereditary chief, ethnographer. Born in Victoria, BC. From 1915 until 1956, he worked as an interpreter and field researcher among the Tsimshian, Nisga'a and Gitksan of British Columbia. With Marius Barbeau, he prepared an ethnographic census of those cultures, particularly their social organization and mythology. For brief periods he also assisted Franz Boas and Philip Drucker. Despite a lack of formal training in anthropology, his field notes supply major data for these cultures.

(From The Canadian Encyclopedia, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/william-beynon. Accessed February 26, 2020.)