Exhibiting the sacred: Material objects, religious history, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization

Abstract

To commemorate the Christian bimillennium, the Canadian Museum of Civilization opened an exhibit entitled Under the Sign of the Cross: Creative Expressions of Christianity in Canada. Although one of the goals of the display was to illustrate the "impact" of Christianity on Canada, the exhibit was noticeably lacking historical context. This article explores the curatorial principles that guided the planning and execution of the exhibit. It argues that the lack of attention to an historical narrative was directly related to assumptions underlying the collection of material objects of religion and an attempt to redeem a "sacred" status for the artefacts on display. Unfortunately, this loss of context also meant that many of the original multiple meanings embodied by these material objects of religion were also lost.