The Royal BC Museum has received a $250,000 donation toward the Indigenous Audio-Visual Collection Digitization Project from the Wesik Family Foundation.
“This generous donation from the Wesik Family Foundation will support the digitization and preservation of language and cultural traditions of more than 200 Indigenous communities and nations located throughout British Columbia.” said Tracey Drake, CEO of the Royal BC Museum.
The Indigenous Audio-Visual Collection consists of more than 28,000 individual photos, audio recordings and moving images (videos) taken across British Columbia from 1890 to 1990 through provincial linguistic and anthropological research.
Currently, only 20 percent of the collection has been digitized and the Wesik Family Foundation donation will contribute to preserving the remaining 80 percent of the collection.
The project will also facilitate the transferring of cultural knowledge back to the nations and Indigenous communities.
