Update from the Douglas Cardinal Collection
The last few months have been a busy time for the Douglas Cardinal Collection here at Archives and Research Collections (ARC). The winter semester saw three enthusiastic practicum students from the art history department working with the collection. Two of the students were involved with the processing of the many architectural plans. This provided the students an opportunity to familiarize themselves with some archival theory as well as important practical experience. The third student was responsible for the arrangement and description of the roughly 1,700 Douglas Cardinal photographs that were included in this accession. In all, this was a great experience for ARC as it allowed the Cardinal Collection to be further opened up to a group of students, as well as our ever growing online following. The three students also had an opportunity to blog during their time with ARC on some of their discoveries within the archives, as you can view below.
Also over the last few months ARC has had the opportunity to showcase the Cardinal Collection on two separate occasions as part of the continuing Carleton in the Community Campaign. On March 20, ARC was present at the Carleton Community Celebration event. This provided an excellent opportunity to highlight the work that has been done on the Cardinal Collection up to this point to members of the Carleton Community as well as individuals external to the University.
Monday April 30 provided another excellent opportunity to show off elements of the collection at the “All Things Digital” showcase. This event gave ARC an excellent chance to show how we have been utilizing different social media tools to provide snapshots from the archives to interested parties. “All Things Digital” also allowed us to display the large quantity of digital material included within this accession of archival material. Both events were great outreach opportunities allowing ARC to establish relationships with multiple communities both at Carleton and external to the University.
This summer there will be a few exciting things happening with the Douglas Cardinal archives. ARC has a new member, Mamta Pathak, who will be assisting with the processing of the architectural plans. This extra help will go a long way in having all of the Cardinal plans processed by the end of the summer. ARC is also welcoming two new practicum students who will be an asset to the team. One of the students will pick up with the photograph collection and begin the digitization process. This will allow the Douglas Cardinal photographs to be made accessible through the ARC website over the course of the summer. The other practicum student will be involved with the continued processing of architectural plans.
As the summer progresses we will be providing further snapshots from the Douglas Cardinal Collection via the blog, as well as the Facebook and Twitter accounts – Stay tuned.
Early stages of construction; Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, QC
Hello all!
This week, I’ve been processing the plans for the Turning Stone Casino on the Oneida Nation in Verona, New York. Designed by Cardinal in 1995, Turning Stone has many of Cardinal’s signature elements, complete with flowing, organic forms and an undulating facade. In comparing this to the Canadian Museum of Civilization below (Photo Source: Canadian Tourism Commission), it’s interesting to note the similarities in style, considering they have such different uses.
-Marianne Williams
Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute
Hello all!
I’m Allison, a 3rd year Art History Practicum student, working with the Douglas Cardinal Archives Project here at Carleton. I don’t have a background in architecture, so please bear with my known-architectural terminology – I promise to try and keep up! I’ve been working through the many series we have of Douglas Cardinal, and something caught my attention today that I’d like to share. Being the Art History student that I am, I noticed the museum exhibit space allocated in Cardinal’s Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute. The institute is a multi-purpose education and community centre in Oujé-Bougoumou, Quebec, and after the museum section of the building sparked my attention, I did a little research. This building was a very recent commission of Cardinal’s and was only just finished and opened to the public in November 2011. The Institute seems to be an equal forerunner for technology, just like Cardinal, by providing virtual exhibits to their museum space. If this is something that interests you (if you’re a museum junkie like I am!) check out the fascinating exhibits here:
http://exhibit.creeculturalinstitute.ca
-Allison
Oneida Development Architectural Drawings
Today the team got an early start processing the Douglas Cardinal architectural plans. The first plans to be processed are those of the Oneida Casino and Hotel Development. Below is a photograph of the first of over 30,000 architectural drawings that are to be processed.
-John Richan
Close to Home…
We are almost two weeks now into processing the Douglas Cardinal fonds and have certainly come across some interesting finds. To date we have processed approximately 25 metres worth of textual records. The majority of the material up to this point has been related to the York Regional Administration Building and the Saskatchewan Federated Indian College (now known as the First Nations University of Canada). Contained within the records of the First Nations University of Canada, dating from 1992-2003 are files related to: design documents; correspondence; programming and course descriptions; layout sketches; furnishing and equipment notes among others.
The First Nations University of Canada (FNUC) was of particular interest to me being born in Regina and having seen the building first hand on a number of occasions. This week I came across something else that resonated with me in the Douglas Cardinal fonds. While going through some of the records relating to the FNUC I came across some work that my uncle had done during the construction process. It was quite a surprise to stumble upon the one box of approximately 300 that contained records relating to my uncle. Needless to say, you never know what you will come across while processing a large collection such as this one.
-John Richan
