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Dialogue: Art versus cultural property, by Richard Hunt
18 August 2001
I worked at the provincial museum in Victoria for 13 years in the Thunderbird Park carving shed. This work was started by my grandfather, Mungo Martin. When he passed away in '62 my father took over and when I was about one year out of high school I started getting hired on for a bunch of 6 month contracts. Eventually I was hired on as an employee. My father, Henry Hunt, retired to become a freelance artist. One of the promises my father made to my grandfather was that there'd always be one of us at Thunderbird Park because it was started by the Kwaguilth. I stayed at the museum for awhile, then when my father passed away I quit the museum because I figured their job was done, that northwest coast artwork was recognized as an art form and not a craft.
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| Works produced solely by Richard Hunt |
Now I figure it should be recognized as a cultural property because the things that I do come from our culture. These are things that we own. We go to our elders to ask them what we can do, and we don't do dances, animals or mythical creatures that don't belong to us. If we did that the elders could cause us shame, or the owners of these could come and cause us shame and we'd have to rectify the situation. So what I'm up to now is that when I travel I talk to people, and I always talk about art versus cultural property. I think that if you call it art, you give everyone a chance to do what belongs to us. But with these open borders that we have now I think that has to be stopped, because the last thing our people have is our culture. Even though we're going to settle the land question and all that, I don't think we're going to get that much out of it. But if we have our culture I see it as a way of people can make a good living, or maybe at least a half decent living, and all they're doing is making it out of something that they already own. It was always here before the Europeans showed up and it'll be here forever.
I think it's a subject people should talk about. When you think about North American native art as being a billion-dollar industry and about 30%-50% is fake, I'd think our people could do something with 300 to 500 million dollars. So that's one of the things I think should happen; Northwest Coast art and the art in the Americas should be cultural property. When I do something I don't give the person the right to dance this mask or the right to claim it as his own, all he can do is claim the mask; he doesn't claim the culture that goes that with it. I've given him the right to display what is mine, and that is how I've always thought about it. Thank you, so if you'd like to talk to me, give me an email and we'll talk. -RH, 1998
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