Museums & The Arts
The Scriver Blackfoot Collection: Repatriation of Canada’s Heritage
Co-curated with Philip H. Stepney at the Provincial Museum of Alberta.
(Edmonton AB: Provincial Museum of Alberta, 1990)
"For God’s Eyes Alone: The Meaning of the Hutterian Brethren Aesthetic"
in Just for Nice: German-Canadian Folk Art
Edited by Magús Einarsson and Helga Benndorf Taylor
(Hull PQ: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1993)
“At Play in the Fields of Meaning: Reflections on Field Research”
in Godly Things, Museums, Objects and Religion
Edited by Crispin Paine
(London & New York: Leicester University Press, 2000):28-56.
https://www.amazon.ca/Godly-Things-Museums-Objects-Religion/dp/0718501535
“Stockholm Sentences”
The Art of a Presence Seen
I was invited to give the keynote address to the Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA) biennial conference held at the University of Dallas in May 2001. The invitation came as a result of my curating an international exhibition, Anno Domini, Jesus through the Centuries, at the Royal Alberta Museum.
This exhibition was my response to two matters. It was the second millennium of the birth of Jesus Christ, the name that anchors our calendar, and a name in which “millions bless and millions curse.” Teaching in religious studies over the three decades prior to the millennium it had become clear to me that the culture of amnesia had triumphed in our society and I hoped to provide, through this exhibition, the public (and my students) with a glimpse into the richness and centrality of “Him who is ever ancient, ever new” and what Christian tradition has meant to the foundations, mixed as it may be, to Western, indeed world culture.
Seasons of Celebration: Ritual in Eastern Christian Culture
(Edmonton AB: Provincial Museum of Alberta, 1986)
"Liturgy, the Art of Arts"
in Heaven on Earth: Orthodox Treasures of Siberia and America
Edited by Barbara Sweetland Smith
(Anchorage AK: Anchorage Museum of History and Art, 1994)
“Modernity’s Priest, Cultural Apologist, or Friend”
The Public Square and the Culture of Amnesia
This essay grew out of my work toward the Anno Domini: Jesus Through the Centuries exhibition I curated in the year 2000. It opens with a reflection on two encounters associated with this work that highlight the challenges in our civil institutions, museums and universities in particular, when it comes to public reflections on the gifts of Christian culture and, by implication, on other culture as well. It was initially published in Findings, The Wilberforce Forum’s Review of Contemporary Culture in 2002.