Art History graduate student explores Northwest Coast Culture at British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology (MOA)

When Art History graduate student Alexis Janssen first visited the West Coast in the mid-2010s, he didn’t expect to return years later—not as a tourist, but as a scholar-in-residence at one of the world’s leading Indigenous art institutions. Thanks to the Bill McLennan Northwest Coast Travel Award, he spent the summer immersed in the collections and expertise of the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology (MOA).

“This award was a rare opportunity to engage directly with Indigenous cultures of the region,” Janssen says. “To be able to study these extraordinary belongings up close and with such knowledgeable staff was a deeply formative experience.”

Administered by the Faculty of Fine Arts and funded by the Doggone Foundation, the $10,000 award honours the legacy of the late Bill McLennan (1948–2020), curator emeritus of MOA and a passionate advocate for Indigenous Northwest Coast arts. Offered annually, the award supports a four- to eight-week summer residency at MOA for full-time Fine Arts graduate students whose research or practice intersects with Northwest Coast Indigenous art and cultures.

Janssen’s research at MOA examines how Northwest Coast Indigenous belongings were exhibited in Québec during the twentieth century. After discovering a pivotal 1951 exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts titled Native Arts of the Pacific Northwest—“the first show in Québec to frame Indigenous Northwest Coast belongings as art rather than artifact”—he traced how this shift connected to broader discourses politics, museum studies, and anthropology. His time at MOA allowed him to deepen this inquiry through direct object study and archival research.

“I’m very object-oriented in my approach,” he explains. “Being at MOA gave me access to significant comparables that helped me better understand both the artistic traditions of the Northwest Coast and the broader museum discourses that have shaped how these belongings have been presented over time.”

With a future in doctoral research already in sight, Janssen emphasizes the residency’s long-term value. “The approaches I developed at MOA will be foundational to my PhD work,” he notes. “For a researcher, access is everything—and the object and library collections at MOA were invaluable resources in that regard.”

The Bill McLennan Award is open to full-time graduate student in the Faculty of Fine Arts whose research or artistic practice intersects with Northwest Coast Indigenous art or cultures. Applications are reviewed by a panel comprising Indigenous faculty, MOA curators, and MOA’s director.

The next call for submissions for this award will be announced later this fall. Internships take place between June and August.

Alexis urges fellow students to apply.

“My main advice? Just go for it. This is such a rich and exciting opportunity. And while you’re there, say ‘yes’ to everything as much as possible—from vault visits to dinners and beach days; these are what make the experience all the more enriching and worthwhile.”

Find out more about the Faculty of Fine Arts graduate funding.