IBPOC Museum Professionals Network
Connect with museum, gallery, and heritage IBPOC professionals from across British Columbia.
Tea & Talk Listserv The Podcast Provide Feedback
This network is supported in part by the RBC Foundation in support of RBC Future Launch.
The network is also supported by the Deux Mille Foundation.
Responding to the immediate needs identified by racially marginalized museum workers, the IBPOC Network provides targeted support for IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, People of Colour) students, volunteers, and professionals of our community through workshops, webinars, networking, and resource development.
Programming for the network is guided by our IBPOC Museum Professionals Advisory Group. If you have any questions about the IBPOC Network or would like to share suggestions, please get in touch with Jazmin Hundal at communications@museum.bc.ca.
Join Our Advisory Group!
The IBPOC Network is looking for new Advisory Group members to join us for the 2024-2026 term.
Applications are open from Sept 5- Oct 20. This is a paid opportunity to contribute to the expansion of this network. If you have ideas for how to support IBPOC folks in our sector, this position is for you!
Applications can be sent to Jazmin at communications@museum.bc.ca. Click the link below to learn more about how to apply.
New Resource!
Justification Letters
As we’ve travelled the province this year, many of you have shared with us how difficult it can be to explain the value of attending our sessions to your team.
So, we’ve written two letters that you can download to help with those conversations!
IBPOC Network sessions are regarded as safe spaces for all British Columbians who identify as IBPOC museum, heritage, and cultural professionals. Please be mindful to give space to one another and respect diverse perspectives and experiences. We ask that you turn your camera on during sessions to help ensure a feeling of safety amongst IBPOC attendees.
Upcoming programming:
IBPOC Tea & Talk
September 12, 2023, 1:00-2:00 PM
Brew yourself a cup of tea and sit down with Network Coordinator Jazmin to chat, seek advice, and get to know other cultural professionals of colour.
These sessions are always free, and don’t require registration.
Tea & Talk On the Road
Next Up: September 27, 2023/ 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm at Haida Heritage Centre in Haida Gwaii.
The BCMA IBPOC Museum Professionals Network is excited to bring in-person Tea and Talk sessions to locations across BC in 2023!
New! Cultivating Careers Sessions:
Join the BMCA for a new IBPOC Museum Professionals Network series on how to cultivate careers in the museum, heritage, and cultural sector.
This recurring series of sessions will focus on ways IBPOC museum, heritage, and cultural professionals can further their careers, encourage emerging IBPOC professionals, and navigate situations within their workplace all with the goal of strengthening IBPOC representation in the sector.
Challenging Inequities Through Inclusive Leadership
July 5, 2023
Watch this IBPOC Museum Professionals Network webinar on challenging inequities with Madison Tardif!
In this interactive session, participants were provided with tools and resources to think about what skills make an inclusive leader. Folks considered their own positionalities and how to use their power to promote change in their own spheres of influence.
Giving and Receiving Feedback
April 20, 2023
Watch this IBPOC Museum Professionals Network webinar on giving and receiving feedback with Madison Tardif!
In this interactive session, participants were encouraged to practice (in breakout rooms) using a variety of tools to help them navigate graciously giving and receiving feedback as a way to surface inequities and build inclusive environments.
Activating Radical Community-Care
February 8, 2023
Watch the latest IBPOC Museum Professionals Network webinar on community-care with Madison Tardif!
Participants were be provided with resources and tools to think about their own identity and positionality in relation to their professional, interpersonal, and communal relationships. As a starting point for engaging with themes of anti-racism, community, building and self-preservation in harmful systems, this session focused on empowering individuals to employ acts of radical self and community care.
Stepping Courageously Into Conflict
January 25, 2023
Watch this IBPOC Museum Professionals Network webinar on conflict engagement with Madison Tardif!
Participants were encouraged to think about conflict from the lens of social justice and systems change. Attendees were be provided resources and tools to navigate difficult conversations and feel empowered to surface differences that matter.
IBPOC Network Feedback Survey
IBPOC Network sessions are regarded as safe spaces for all those who identify as IBPOC museum, heritage, and cultural professionals in what is colonially referred to as British Columbia. As such, the BCMA would like to learn additional ways the IBPOC Network can support these professionals.
Your responses will remain anonymous. Individuals can submit feedback more than once.
IBPOC Network Listserv
This Listserv provides a forum for IBPOC members of the arts, culture & heritage community to discuss issues and promote opportunities through a monitored mailing list.
Why the name IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour)?
Originally launched under the name BIPOC Network, Indigenous BCMA members reached out and suggested using the term IBPOC to recognize that the discussions and activities facilitated through this network are taking place on the ceded, unceded, and sovereign territories of Indigenous communities across what is now referred to as British Columbia. The BCMA recognizes that we are uninvited guests on these territories and wish to centre this network around respect and reconciliation.
We recognize that grouping such distinct identities together suggests an interchangeability that fails to articulate the differential ways that racialized people experience race and racism and will continue to evolve and update our language in consultation with the community.
This Network was inspired by the #MuseumsAreNotNeutral Webinar in June 2020. Watch the webinar
Check out this recent webinar:
Community-centred Approaches to Museum Exhibits and Programs
The IBPOC Museum Professionals Network was joined by culture executive, Karen Carter for an informative webinar on community-centred approaches to museum exhibits and programs. Participants learnt how to become a co-conspirator for DEIA, build relationships not just partnerships, and what a call-and-response communications model is.
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Justice
Explore our growing collection of resources on equity and justice.
This network is supported in part by the RBC Foundation in support of RBC Future Launch.
The network is also supported by the Deux Mille Foundation.
