AHIS 206: Intro BC Aboriginal Art Hist

This course introduces the art history of British Columbia Aboriginal people, beginning with pre-contact/pre-historic period until the 1960's. It includes the earliest BC Aboriginal art forms recorded by archaeologists and oral histories, as well as the transitional shifts in both utilitarian and aesthetic objects. The course takes a thematic and ethnographic approach within a historical, socio-political and cultural context examining cultural communities in terms of resource materials, tools and implements used in material production. It explores issues of cultural appropriation and "authenticity" and the governmental policies that influenced and/or affected the BC Aboriginal art practices.