CAC Reconciliation Working Group - Announcement and Fundraising With new policies and legislation being developed at a national level to comply with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action, the Canadian Association for Conservation of Cultural Property (CAC), as a national organization, has a duty to keep pace with these efforts. Canadian conservators often have a uniquely intimate relationship with cultural material belonging to the Inuit, Métis, and First Nation Peoples, held in both private and public collections; this privileged position will profoundly impact the way that reconciliation takes place on the ground in Canada.
We are very pleased to announce that the CAC Board has approved a proposal put forward by the Ad-hoc Advocacy Committee to implement a Reconciliation Working Group (RWG) as of May 2020 to address how our organization should be contributing to and promoting reconciliation with the Indigenous Peoples of the territories in which we work. The mandate of the RWG will be to develop a formal position for the CAC on the care, community access and repatriation of materials of Indigenous origin, and to reflect this position in CAC working documents, which may include the Codes of Ethics and Guidelines of Practice. The group will be active for two years, and will involve engaged consultation, skill-sharing activities, meetings, and rich discussions. All activities will conform with the OCAP® (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession) principles of collaborative research with Indigenous communities developed by the First Nations Information Governance Center (https://fnigc.ca/ocap). Objectives (1) Expand our conservation professional standards to respect Indigenous perspectives in cultural preservation. (2) Establish a framework for a collaborative practice towards the care and preservation of Indigenous materials, including practical guidelines for providing access to collections and facilitating repatriations. RWG Structure 14-20 Indigenous and non-Indigenous conservators and stewards of Inuit, Métis, and First Nations cultural heritage who will volunteer or be nominated by their peers. Including three Co-Chairs from the CAC membership, and three Secretaries from the CAC Adhoc Advocacy Committee. Membership will be subdivided into three regional groups: Western, Interior, and Eastern. Funding The timeline of our consultation process is highly dependent on the success of multiple grant proposals being submitted this fall. In the interim, we have launched a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds. Please show your support by contributing to this crowdfunding initiative: www.gofundme.com/f/art-conservators-for-truth-and-reconciliation <https://www.gofundme.com/f/art-conservators-for-truth-and-reconciliation> Donations are 100% tax deductible. To ensure that the formation of the RWG is transparent and democratic, we invite you to give suggestions and feedback as well as nominate someone or express your interest to contribute. The complete project proposal is available on CAC’s website in English <https://www.cac-accr.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/reconciliation-working-group-proposal.pdf> and in French <https://www.cac-accr.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/proposition-pour-le-groupe-de-travail-sur-la-rconciliation.pdf> (https://www.cac-accr.ca/about-us/). If you have further questions about the project, please contact the group secretaries Lauren Osmond, Julia Campbell-Such, and Charlotte Parent via rwg.cac.a...@gmail.com <mailto:rwg.cac.a...@gmail.com>. Best, CAC Ad-hoc Advocacy Committee The Canadian Association for Conservation of Cultural Property (CAC) represents conservation professionals who work throughout the traditional territories of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples across Canada. The CAC wishes to express gratitude on behalf of all its members for the opportunity to live and work on these lands, and acknowledges the location of its secretariat on the traditional, unceded territories of the Algonquin nation. ****** Unsubscribe by sending a message to consdistlist-le...@cool.conservation-us.org Searchable archives: http://cool.conservation-us.org/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/
