"Between Illusion and Reality": Presentations of the Past in Canadian Streetscape Exhibits

Abstract

Since Canada’s first streetscape exhibit opened in the British Columbia Provincial Museum in 1972, visitors have immersed themselves in partial historical narratives. Built up with half-sized façades inspired by historical buildings and staged with historical artifacts to make the settings appear lived-in, streetscape exhibits offered visitors the chance to step back in time and experience history “as it actually was.” Almost twenty years later, in 1989, the new Canadian Museum of Civilization took inspiration from this original streetscape for the design of their own history galleries. Both streetscape exhibits provided sensory-based, immersive experiences that promised “historical authenticity” without direct curatorial interpretation. This thesis examines how the 1972 streetscape exhibit at the BC Provincial Museum (now the Royal BC Museum) and the 1989 streetscape at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (now the Canadian Museum of History) reflected and shaped visitors’ understandings of Canada’s past. By entrenching history within settler commemorative practices that echoed popular Canadian historical narratives, these museums appealed to public desires for immersive entertainment. This research ultimately explores how the consumption of history in two Canadian streetscape exhibits from 1972 to 1989 reinforced different but complementary narratives of nation.