The Nova Scotia Museum belongs to all Nova Scotians. We are celebrating our 150th birthday. We opened in 1868 as a general museum of science and history. Today, we are a family of 28 sites located throughout the province – the most decentralized museum in Canada. Our collection includes more than one million artifacts and specimens.
We’re looking back on 150 years of museum making. What choices did our predecessors make? What did they decide to collect? What did they overlook?
Sparking Conversations
Museums should get people talking and learning about different perspectives of our diverse heritage. To make this exhibit, we asked a diverse team of researchers from our Museum sites across the province to explore what matters most to Nova Scotians in 2018. Our thoughts on these subjects are not meant to be exhaustive, nor are they neutral. Visitors and future museum makers will no doubt point to our biases and prejudices – that’s how museums evolve. We hope that the exhibit will spark some lively conversations.
Looking back, looking forward
As we honour the work of our past museum makers, we’re also looking to the future. What objects should we collect? Why? Museum making is all about making choices – choices that are informed by what is happening today.
What matters to you?
We’re challenging ourselves — and you — to think about what matters most to Nova Scotians in 2018. What are you talking about at the coffee shop, on social media, at the dinner table? Which objects best represent these issues? In what ways? What Nova Scotian stories should we share with the world?
Become a Museum Maker
To mark our birthday, we want your help in choosing about a dozen items from Nova Scotia in 2018 to add to our collection. What should we add?
Share your ideas at one of our museums using our Museum Making: An Invitation Tag Board.
Share your ideas (and photos) by tagging us on social media and using #NSM150
Email us your ideas at NSM150@novascotia.ca or use our contact form.
Follow all our birthday celebrations using #NSM150.