Community Engagement

Reimagining the Royal BC Museum

Today’s Royal BC Museum is committed to creating community connections, gathering spaces, educational programs, and for critical thinking, self-reflection, and thought-provoking experiences for people living in BC and around the world.

Updating our aging facilities and infrastructure is a critical part of reimagining the museum and archives, but so too is rethinking our methods and processes. It’s a significant task. Reimagining the museum requires fiscal responsibility, enormous creativity, and, above all else, an approach that welcomes and includes the perspectives of all people in British Columbia.

We aim to listen to everyone and strive to understand what matters to you. With your help we can reimagine the museum to ensure people from all corners of the province feel welcomed, included and represented.

We welcome your ideas, your feedback, and your voice.

Ways to Participate

Complete the online Survey
Watch an Information Session
Fill out a Comment Card
Email us your feedback at engage@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca
Follow us on social media

Based on the feedback received from participants in Phase 1 of this process, Phase 2 engagement focuses on four main themes:
- Building, spaces, and facilities: A physical and cultural space that welcomes and reflects all people in BC.
- Indigenous Reconciliation and United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) implementation: Collaborating on Indigenous representation in the museum’s exhibitions and institutional culture, and building on the repatriation and reconciliation processes.
- Diversity and representation: Ensuring all cultural and social perspectives are part of the future, with thoughtful and meaningful representation.
- Inclusion and accessibility: Making the museum, its facilities, and its programs more inclusive and accessible to all visitors.
Discussion about the first theme will focus on the museum’s primary site in Victoria. The current buildings housing the museum, archives, collections, offices, IMAX Victoria, and other assets have been determined to be significantly seismically deficient and experts have recommended upgrades or replacement. Through these public consultations, the public will be asked to offer their thoughts on whether the current museum buildings should be replaced, renovated, or some combination of the two.
The Royal BC Museum’s goal is for people in British Columbia of all demographics and lived experiences to feel a sense of belonging, ownership, and pride about the provincial museum and the stories it shares with the world.

We are asking everyone across BC to participate in all phases of public engagement. Your participation ensures that your voice will be heard.

Alongside our calls for public participation, we are making a special effort to have conversations and collect feedback from:
- First Nations, Urban Indigenous, Inuit, and Métis peoples
- Intercultural communities
- GLAM sector partners (galleries, libraries, archives and museum)
- Business partners and Chambers of Commerce
- Municipalities and regional districts across BC
- Post-secondary institutes and school districts
- 2SLGBTQIA+
- People with disabilities and / or accessibility needs
- People experiencing poverty and / or living on a limited income
- Rural and remote areas of BC
- Youth
Your involvement throughout the community engagement process can help us better understand how the people of BC envision their Royal BC Museum of the future.

Community Engagement Phases

Phase 2: Deeper Engagement Through Consultation

We are currently in Phase 2 of our engagement process.

Important conversations continue as we embark on deeper engagement throughout the province to encourage active participation, feedback, and collaboration from diverse voices and perspectives on the future of the Royal BC Museum and its experiences.

Since September 2023, the engagement team has visited dozens of communities and heard from more than thousands of participants through community conversations, virtual sessions, interactive events, and tours. Travelling to communities allows people to be deeply involved in the sharing of their history, lived experiences and stories. Through this collaborative process, we dive deeper into themes that were emphasized in the Phase 1 dialogue.

See where we have travelled and hosted past events by visiting our events page. Learn more by watching an Information Session and joining us on a virtual Interactive Tour: Buildings and Spaces.

We aim to listen to everyone and strive to understand what matters to people in British Columbia and what will encourage and welcome everyone to be a part of a reimagined Royal BC Museum. Phase 2 will conclude with a publicly available report to the Royal BC Museum Board, the provincial government, and the public.

Phase 1: Dialogue with British Columbians

The Royal BC Museum team facilitated dialogue sessions and gatherings across BC to both inform participants and spark conversations within communities. These sessions were hosted in person at the Royal BC Museum and communities across the province, as well as virtually. In Phase 1 of public engagement, the Royal BC Museum focused on relationship building and providing information about the past, present, and future of the museum and archives. A survey was also launched during Phase 1 and was available through in-person kiosks and online. Through the survey, dialogue sessions, and gatherings we reached over 1,300 people in total.

In Phase 1, Royal BC Museum staff had the opportunity to connect with the general public, museum members and volunteers, the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) community, businesses and the tourism industry, First Nations and Métis communities, youth, educators, and students to hear a wide range of perspectives.

All of the feedback and information collected in Phase 1 was analyzed by staff and engagement consultants to inform the formal Phase 2 Engagement Strategy.

The Journey so Far

Since its inception in 1886, the Royal BC Museum has changed and evolved alongside the rest of the province. The BC Archives were founded in 1894 and in 2003, both organizations joined together to become BC’s combined provincial museum and archives, with the purpose of broadening understanding of our province.

The museum is passionate about inspiring curiosity and wonder while sharing BC’s story with the millions of visitors who walk through our doors and explore our website each year.

PARC Campus

The new 15,200 square-metre (163,611 square feet) PARC (Provincial Archives, Research and Collections) Campus formerly known as the collections and research building is being built on Lekwungen Territory, in the area that is known today as Colwood, BC. This state-of-the-art facility will house the Royal BC Museum’s provincial archives, research and collection departments. It will include dedicated research labs and learning spaces, and it will improve public access to the province’s vast collections.

The unique design of the building will allow visitors to interact with displays and artifacts and provide opportunities for the public to witness researchers at work in person and online in the media centre. As well the new PARC Campus learning spaces will serve as hubs for educational activities, workshops, and events, providing an immersive experience for visitors of all ages and abilities.

Learn more about PARC Campus

Search our website

Modernization

Ways to Give

The Learning Portal

The Repatriation Handbook

The Research Portal

The Archives