Martha Black

Martha Black is Curator of Indigenous Collections at the Royal BC Museum. Before coming to the RBCM in 1997 she was for 20 years Curator and Associate Director of The Isaacs Gallery Ltd. in Toronto, specializing in contemporary Canadian art, and then completed a PhD at the University of Victoria. Martha has worked on many collaborative exhibitions and projects with First Nations and on repatriation within and outside of the treaty negotiation process.

Her publications include articles on museum collections and collectors, collaborations and repatriation, as well as First Nations of Canada, Living Cultures and Arts: Collections of the Royal British Columbia Museum (Museo del Oro, Bogotá, 2017), Out of the Mist: Treasures of the Nuu-chah-nulth Chiefs (Royal BC Museum, 1999) and Bella Bella: A Season of Heiltsuk Art (Royal Ontario Museum, Douglas & McIntyre, University of Washington Press, 1997). With Caitlin Gordon-Walker she co-edited Indigeneities and Museums: Ongoing Conversations (BC Studies, 2018).

Martha has taught and lectured throughout Canada and abroad. Among her many RBCM projects is the on-going renewal of the museum’s First Peoples gallery.