IN
THIS SECTION: About Us:
Our
mandate:
The goal
of CURA is to develop collaborative alliances between the University
of Victoria, its CURA partners, and the arts and heritage community
throughout British Columbia. The five partners in CURA offer their research, teaching
and curatorial resources to assist with community-based projects.
The program is designed to help community organizations research
and document their visual arts collections and heritage property.
A primary objective is to develop an integrated body of knowledge
of provincial collections that is available to a wide audience.
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CURA
at the University of Victoria:
The
CURA Program operates out of the History
in Art Department at the University
of Victoria. CURA projects are multi-disciplinary and are
supported by faculty from History in
Art and other university departments including Anthropology, History,
Geography, English, Environmental Studies and Education. University
students participate as research assistants for course credit
or through student employment programs. CURA also offers Training
and Study Visit Fellowships for on-campus courses in the Cultural
Resource Management Program.
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CURA
Partners:
The
University's community partners bring added expertise to CURA.
The Royal
British Columbia Museum offers support to cultural projects
in conjunction with its Living
Landscapes Program in central and northern B.C. The Museum
is contributing curatorial assistance for collections research,
project coordination and community programming. The Art
Gallery of Greater Victoria, with its major collections in
Canadian, European and Asian art and its curatorial experience,
offers its resources to curators in community art galleries. The
Heritage
Society of B.C. and the B.C.
Museums Association support the communications network of
the CURA program and assist with program development and project
coordination. The Heritage
Society provides advisory services and training opportunities
in the conservation of heritage resources. The Museums Association
offers assistance for technical services and coordinates a web-building
training program.
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Project
Support:
CURA is currently supporting 17 community-driven research projects selected by jury process from proposals received from museums, galleries and heritage organizations. The projects are based on a diverse range of cultural property significant to communities throughout British Columbia.
The CURA projects present new ways of thinking about local collections and collaborative approaches to research. The goal of CURA is to build equal and mutually-beneficial research alliances between CURA participants and community partners. Each project is managed by a representative from the community group and a faculty member from the University of Victoria. Academics apply their research skills to help meet the concrete needs of community organizations. The multidisciplinary collaboration of faculty and students from several university departments, museum professionals and community participants offers a cross-fertilization of ideas and methods. Student researchers have the rare opportunity, especially at the undergraduate level, to work with real collections and primary materials as members of a project team. Community partners and other community participants contribute their expertise and local knowledge around the collections and their context.
Project outcomes will include exhibitions, publications, curricula materials, CD-ROMs and web sites, all of which will disseminate the research results to as wide an audience as possible. By helping regional heritage institutions document their collections, CURA will provide a more informed and detailed knowledge of the individuals, diverse ethnic groups and communities that have contributed to the cultural history of British Columbia.
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