Officials with the Royal BC Museum were in Cranbrook on Thursday night to hear feedback from the community to help shape the organization’s future.
“What we’re hoping for is to hear from the public with respect to their thoughts on the Royal BC Museum and to hear about how, from their perspective, we can build better relationships with communities around the province,” said Museum CEO Alicia Dubois.
Dubois said this will be done by partnering with local museums and galleries and through education programs.
“We’d like to hear about what else we could be doing to be impactful and relevant for the community,” said Dubois. “Ultimately, as the province’s museum, we’re here to serve all of British Columbia, and we’re very happy to do that in a way that reflects a more modern museum.”
The session held in the Cranbrook History Centre on Thursday evening was the first phase of the museum’s community engagement process.
The next stage will focus on the organization’s future.
“Museums are evolving. They’re moving away from being that director of history and telling history through a specific lens, and being much about being community-based and co-creating museum experiences through the lens of community to actually experience the history,” said Dubois.
Dubois said the Royal BC Museum would function as a facilitator of that process rather than a director.
The next phase is expected to start in the fall, with the museum taking the information gathered during the engagement sessions and look into the common themes.
“Then we really roll up our sleeves and dig into those important topics and begin to get feedback from communities and analyze the data and have a more clear, focused conversation on how best to be the modern museum for British Columbians,” said Dubois.
