April 2016

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The art object you see at the Canadian War Museum will increasingly draw you into the world of photography and the digital age.

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Museum Director General Stephen Quick wants to put more emphasis on collecting and exhibiting photographs, films and new media to offer visitors more than just traditional paintings of battlefield scenes from World War II. which currently dominate the rooms of the museum.

The planned shift in focus also means collaborating more with other major photo collections, including those of the National Gallery of Canada, Library and Archives Canada, and the Imperial War Museum in Great Britain.

“We’re on the edge of a whole new world in terms of interpreting our visual world,” says Quick. “So we have to be part of it. “

Hence the hiring of Joanne Stober, historian of photography and cinema at Library and Archives Canada, to replace Laura Brandon, who retired two years ago after spending 22 years organizing numerous very media coverage of the museum.

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Brandon’s title was Historian, War, and Art. Stober’s title is Historian, Warfare, and Visual Culture, to underline a broadening of responsibilities.

“I’m really excited; I’m having a blast,” Stober said on Friday, his first day on the job.

At Library and Archives, Stober was mainly involved in the acquisition of film and photos. Her new job will allow her to use her collection management and curatorial skills, she says. Stober holds a doctorate in communication, focusing on the history of cinema. She teaches the history of film and photography at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa.

Stober says the paintings that most people consider art of war will still be seen in the museum, but they will no longer be the sole focus. The museum’s collection already includes a considerable number of photographs and these will also be increasingly highlighted. And expect to see more emphasis on warzone photojournalism.

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According to the picture painted by Quick, Stober will be somewhat of a diplomat and negotiator “connecting” the war museum with other institutions and bridging the various ways of presenting “visual culture”, whether he is. be it the heroic paintings of Vimy Ridge or the latest Internet art.

Stober’s own online Linkedin page lists the very skills Quick says he wanted. “She has experience in building relationships with creators, artists, photographers, donors, collectors, curators, academics and historians,” the Linkedin page says.

Quick says that many of the museum’s exhibits that were previously curated in-house, by Brandon and other museum historians, will be curated by outsiders who may have a different approach to exhibiting particular aspects of the collection.

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The shift to a more digital world is the way war is documented by artists today. The Canadian Forces Artist Program, which allows artists to integrate into the military for short periods of time, increasingly sends photographers and filmmakers to accompany the troops.

Leslie Reid of Ottawa is an example of an artist who created memorable photographic art during a two-week residency with Canadian soldiers in the Arctic in 2013. Her exhibit, Mapping the Cold War, is on display at the Military Museums from Calgary. Reid’s multimedia exhibit contains videos, photographs (both contemporary and archival) and paintings, documenting environmental and cultural changes in the North. Some of these changes are seen through a military lens.

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At the war museum itself, expect to see the growing influence of the digital world in an exhibit titled War and Media for 2019. The exhibit was originally only intended to cover the two world wars, but the exhibit was revamped and will take us directly into the digital age and Canada’s recent involvement in Afghanistan, a war primarily documented through film and photography.

Quick had reported these kinds of changes to the museum last September when he first became director, replacing James Whitham. Museums need to find new ways to tell stories, he said in an interview last fall. As an example, Quick cited Louis Palu’s documentary film Kandahar Journals which premiered last September at the War Museum. The film explores both the horrific experiences of fighting in Afghanistan and the management of life at home afterwards. Showing Palu’s film is a matter of being “relevant,” Quick said at the time.

Hiring Joanne Stober, Quick hopes, will also make the museum more relevant in this digital age.