‘Fugitives’ hiding out in latest Pocket Gallery exhibit at Royal BC Museum

Unexpected objects that two artist-anthropologists found while doing research at the BC Archives are the inspiration behind the new Pocket Gallery exhibition at the Royal BC Museum, Fugitives in the Archive.

From bullet fragments to acid-burnt paper, the collection of odd and diverse objects that resist archival preservation techniques or do not conform to archival conventions are the basis for this collaboration between Trudi Lynn Smith, adjunct assistant professor at the University of Victoria, and Kate Hennessy, associate professor at Simon Fraser University, and the BC Archives.

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The exhibition is “a rare fusion of art and archives, provoking questions about the ongoing human connection to materials in archives and our responsibility to consider the role of archives in our society.”

Opening Nov. 2 and running until Jan. 6, Fugitives in the Archive is featured in the Pocket Gallery in RBCM that occupies a corner “pocket” of the museum’s ground floor Clifford Carl Hall. It is easily accessible, for free, to all visitors during opening hours (10 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week).

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The Pocket Gallery was originally envisioned to showcase the array of Royal BC Museum collections, research and conservation work that visitors rarely get to see.

The concept has since been expanded to include the work of partners, like the Sisters of St. Ann, and external research that investigates and interrogates the museum collections, like Fugitives in the Archive.