BC Museums Association Podcast

Join our host Lorenda and Illana Hester, Executive Director of The Old School House Arts Centre, arts advisor, and coordinator of Creative Coast, for a conversation about leadership, accountability, bravery, and community-building. Explore leadership as a collaborative practice grounded in care, curiosity, transparency, vulnerability, and a willingness to learn from failure, and reflect on how arts and cultural organizations can build trust, share decision-making, challenge hierarchical systems, and create space for meaningful connection.

Resources:

• BCMA - 2SLGBTQIA+ Cultural Professionals Network
• QP — The Old School House Arts Centre
• The Old School House Arts Centre

Join our host Lorenda and Sally Kim, Objects Conservator at the Royal BC Museum, for a conversation about accessibility, conservation, relationship-building, and repatriation. Sally reflects on her experiences as a deaf museum professional and explores how museums can move beyond accommodation toward meaningful accessibility grounded in listening, transparency, universal design, and disability justice. Consider how collaboration, cultural knowledge, and human connection can reshape conservation practice and create more welcoming, equitable, and responsive museums.

Resources: 

• Signs by d-Deaf Conservators
• Accessibility - BCMA
• M̓ṇúxvʔit model for centering Indigenous knowledge and governance - PMC
• After 113 years, Royal B.C. Museum hands back chief's seat to coastal First Nation

Join our host Lorenda and Michelle Richard and Emma Wilton from the Sooke Region Museum for a conversation about community engagement, leadership, and reimagining a local museum. Ahead of the museum’s 50th anniversary, Michelle and Emma share how community feedback is guiding a complete refresh of its permanent exhibits. Explore the challenges of widening historical narratives, recognizing bias, improving accessibility, and creating space for more people to see themselves reflected in the museum while discussing transparency, accountability, risk-taking, and the importance of listening, learning, and adapting while caring for the stories and belongings entrusted to their organization.

Resources: 

• Sooke Region Museum
• Interior Exhibit Refresh - Sooke Region Museum
• Sooke Night Market

Join our host Lorenda and Wedlidi Speck, hereditary chief and Vice President for People, Culture and Reconciliation at the Royal BC Museum, for a conversation about leadership, healing, accountability, and decolonization. Drawing on his work as a therapist, cultural leader, and museum professional, Wedlidi reflects on the importance of listening, humility, psychological and cultural safety, and collaborative decision-making. Explore how values become meaningful through action, how circles can reshape hierarchical leadership, and how Indigenous and non-Indigenous museum professionals can examine the ongoing impacts of colonization while building relationships grounded in respect, responsibility, courage, and care.

Resources:

• Gigame’dzikas (Many Chiefs Project)
  

 

Join our host Lorenda and Q̓íx̌itasu Elroy White, Haíɫzaqv archaeologist, hereditary chief, elected council member, historian, singer, and dancer, for a conversation about leadership, cultural stewardship, archaeology, and repatriation. Explore the M̓ṇúxvit approach, grounded in Haíɫzaqv laws, knowledge, relationships, and collective responsibility, and reflect on what changes when museum objects are understood as belongings connected to living families, ceremonies, songs, and inherited rights.

Resources:

• Haíɫzaqv archeologist practices M̓ṇúxvit approach to ancestral work | Coastal First Nations
• M̓ṇúxvʔit model for centering Indigenous knowledge and governance - PMC
• After 113 years, Royal B.C. Museum hands back chief's seat to coastal First Nation

It’s March 2026, welcome to MuseNews, the BCMA’s monthly museum sector news podcast. Each month we recap some of the latest breaking news, happenings, and announcements from museums, galleries, and heritage organizations across BC and beyond.

Stories from March 2026: 

Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw carvers restore century-old totem pole at Royal B.C. Museum | CBC News

B.C. Sports Hall of Fame relocates hundreds of thousands of artifacts to make way for FIFA World Cup | CBC News

New Chinese Canadian Museum Exhibit Explore Sports, Athletes, and Art Ahead of FIFA

National monument honours Cowichan sweater, knitters - Victoria Times Colonist

Closure of Courtenay war museum part of trend: UVic prof - Victoria Times Colonist

It’s February 2026, welcome to MuseNews, the BCMA’s monthly museum sector news podcast. Each month we recap some of the latest breaking news, happenings, and announcements from museums, galleries, and heritage organizations across BC and beyond.

February 2026 Stories: 

Find Just Desserts at Pitt Meadows Museum | Maple Ridge News

Royal BC Museum faces mounting financial pressures

Feasibility study looks at life after Selkirk at KSA : My Nelson Now

Aviation Museum brings back Open Cockpit Day to North Saanich | Victoria News

‘Float the Boat’ campaign aims to keep Maritime Museum of BC sailing through transition year

It’s January 2026, welcome to MuseNews, the BCMA’s monthly museum sector news podcast. Each month we recap some of the latest breaking news, happenings, and announcements from museums, galleries, and heritage organizations across BC and beyond.

 

Stories from January 2026: 

Museum of Personal Failure exhibition turns defeat into triumph in Vancouver | CBC News

‘This is who we are’: B.C. senior constructs mini museum to showcase Canadian design

Recent Mission Museum restoration nominated for a BC Heritage Award

Online exhibit celebrates B.C. Interior town’s long Japanese-Canadian legacy | Chilliwack Progress

Ry Moran named acting CEO for Royal BC Museum

Welcome to MuseNews, the BCMA’s monthly museum sector news podcast. Each month, we recap some of the latest breaking news, happenings, and announcements from museums, galleries, and heritage organizations across BC and beyond.

Stories from October 2025: 

https://www.castanet.net/news/Penticton/578284/Dinosaurs-invading-Penticton-at-visiting-museum-exhibit

https://www.cbc.ca/news/vatican-museums-indigenous-artifacts-canada-9.6946597

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sveva-caetani-vernon-bc-artist-rome-maxxi-1.7650957

https://heritagebc.ca/events-activities/annual-conference/

https://cheknews.ca/royal-bc-museum-looking-for-new-ceo-fourth-in-five-years-1285497/

https://cheknews.ca/national-toy-museum-reopens-in-downtown-victoria-with-grand-opening-weekend-1282074/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canadian-tire-blanket-fund-9.6940989

Bonus: https://www.frequencynews.ca/news/new-museum-of-vancouver-exhibition-documents-the-lives-of-people-living-with-long-covid/

It’s September 2025, welcome to MuseNews, the BCMA’s monthly museum sector news podcast. Each month we recap some of the latest breaking news, happenings, and announcements from museums, galleries, and heritage organizations across BC and beyond.

Summer Wrap-Up News Stories 2025: 

• Summer students integral to running of museum program | Northern News
• Summerland Museum hooks up fully functional telegraph machine to communicate with other museums in BC and Alberta - Castanet.net
• Lost for over a century, Heiltsuk Nation celebrates return of bentwood box | Globalnews.ca 
• 'The wrong history': After 110 years and a mislabelling, Tla'amin artifacts return home
• Historic Japanese triplexes restored at B.C.’s oldest surviving cannery - Terrace Standard
• Rare ‘medieval’ artifacts found in B.C. thrift store donated to SFU for study
• Renewal Project — Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre

This has been Muse News for Summer 2025! If you have news you want to share on this program, please email us at bcma@museum.bc.ca. Join us in October for another episode of MuseNews, where we explore the latest news, announcements, and happenings from museums across bc and beyond!


BCMA thanks Digital Museums Canada for their sponsorship.