Open Collections

Abstract

My thesis project centres around reclamation – what it means to reclaim one’s personal and family history, community treasures and belongings, and right to truth-telling through storytelling in a self- and co-curated exhibit. Following an autoethnographic framework, I connect my cultural heritage identity as a Filipina-Lílwat woman and my 42 years of experience living and working with the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, within the context of migration studies, Indigeneity, and repatriation and reconciliation efforts. Through my exhibit and exegesis, I explore the notion of Coming Home through a critical-creative exploration of “home” and processes of reclamation informed by my land-based knowledges and pre-existing public history collaborations with the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society and Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation. In order to bridge traditional knowledge with public history, and community with academia, Coming Home forefronts the oral history tradition of truth-telling through visual and textual forms, and emphasizes the efficacy of collaboration in public history and heritage work by mirroring community-based processes. The accompanying public history exhibit titled Coming Home, aimed to consider how museum exhibits can present cultural belongings, stories, and experiences in ways that honour their meanings and ongoing connections to family and community, and that allow for a critical-creative exploration of Indigenous-Asian relations and mobilities. This first iteration of the exhibit was on display in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre with the Chung | Lind Gallery at UBC from May to July 2025. By using photographs and treasures within my family collection in the exhibit to tell my stories, of my mother who was Stlʼatlʼimx of the Lílwat, my father who was Visayan of the Philippines, and my husband whose roots were of the Mowachaht and Muchalaht, Coming Home traced my journey of reclaiming these histories as a means of guiding the futures of my grandchildren and later generations. This research-creation process enabled me to explore an approach to collaborative co-curation that can be done with respect, self-determination, and cooperation, as well as operate as a process of reclamation in itself.