Coordinator Needed!

Bill Fitzhugh's Exhibit Journal '94-'95

December 1994: Big Ainu meeting here in DC. Kotani has come with a group of scholars, and we have assembled the curators from our museums: Laurel Kendall from American Museum, Amy Poster from Brooklyn, and Adria Katz from Penn. Great sessions on Ainu collecting history. We also have a good line on how to organize the show. Gloria Webster, a Kwakiutl Native, has given us some stern advice on Native collaboration. Basically, we need more! We'd like to get Kayano involved, but he is very busy with politics now. We're preparing a proposal for Smithsonian funding for next year's meeting, when Kotani will bring a larger group, including Ainu.

June 1995: We got our grant! Not much, but enough for a start. Planning for the December conference is beginning. Our first task is to identify an Ainu project coordinator. We've canvassed the North American community. Need a Japanese or Japanese-American, speaking Japanese, also familiar with Ainu and /or Ainu anthropology and art....it would be great to find an Ainu, but there are few in anthropology or museum work who speak English.

October 1995: Amazing luck! We have found a great coordinator! Chisato Dubreuil. MA from University of Washington, Seattle, worked with Robin Wright and did a thesis on a contemporary Ainu artist, Bikky Sunavawa. She'll take the job and can start in November.

Photo: Koji Deriha.

First task, to organize the December workshop, then to get in touch with the Ainu people. Chisato (Kitty) grew up in Hokkaido. Married to an American Indian, David Dubreuil (Huron/Mohawk) who was a US serviceman. A great team.

Continue: The Real World - Kitty Dubreuil's exhibit journal '95-'96

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