Ruth Phillips has been nominated for a 2012 Ottawa Book Award

 

Professor of Art History, Ruth Phillips, has been nominated for a 2012 Ottawa Book Award in the non-fiction category for her book Museum Pieces.

Phillips, who is also the Canada Research Chair in Modern Culture, was honoured to receive the prestigious nomination.

“It was an unexpected and welcomed nomination,” explains Phillips.  “For me, the nomination is evidence that the book’s impact goes beyond the academic and museum audience.”

Museum Pieces is the culmination of years of research.  About half of the essays included in the book were published at different moments in Phillips’ career, and many were written in response to specific controversies.  The other half of the essays function as an assessment of the 21st century landscape of Indigenous representation in Canadian museums.  In Museum Pieces, Phillips reviews the development of collaborative models for work with Aboriginal people over the last three decades to provide a more accurate reflection of Indigenous culture.

“There has been significant progress in the ways Aboriginal people and museums have worked together.  The models that we have developed now extend beyond the Indigenous population to representations of other cultures.  Museums are now better equipped to handle our diversity,” says Phillips.

Fundamentally, Museum Pieces challenges readers to think about museum politics and the role they play in Canadian society.  Concurrently, the book highlights Canada’s achievement in making modern museums a more powerful and authentic place.

Phillips believes that working at Carleton University has played a major role in facilitating her many research successes.

“Carleton is ideally situated to address national concerns and museum issues.  The recent recognitions received by members of the Carleton arts community confirm that Carleton’s role in training students in museology is becoming more prominent and professionalized.”

Currently, Phillips is working on a book on visual culture in the Great Lakes across the four centuries of contact and is developing a new project that places modern First Nations and Inuit arts in comparative global perspective. Museum Pieces also recently made the shortlist for the 2012 Donner Prize, which has been awarded annually since 1998 to recognize excellence and innovation in public policy writing in Canada.

More on the Ottawa Book Awards, and Museum Pieces here.