Museum of Anthropology at UBC

The Museum of Anthropology was established in 1949 as a department within the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia. In 1976, it moved to its current home, an award-winning concrete and glass structure designed by Canadian architect Arthur Erickson. The building houses the Museum as well as the Laboratory of Archaeology, its laboratories and storage facilities. Since its inception, MOA has been committed to promoting awareness and understanding of culturally diverse ways of knowing the world through challenging and innovative programs and partnerships with Indigenous, local and global communities. MOA has been at the forefront of bringing Indigenous art into the mainstream by collecting and curating traditional and contemporary Indigenous art in a way that respects the artists and the cultures from which this work comes. MOA’s exhibitions and programs emphasize artistic diversity and the links between art, community and the contemporary social and political context in which youth, artists and communities are communicating their cultural traditions. MOA is also one of Canada’s largest teaching museums with faculty and staff teaching courses in museum studies, museum education, and conservation as well as Indigenous and world art. MOA houses nearly 50,000 works from almost every part of the world. MOA is known for its sizable Northwest Coast collections, including the finest collection of works by Bill Reid. Nearly half the collection is composed of works from Asia and Oceania while other significant holdings represent the Arctic, Latin America and Europe. MOA’s collection of world textiles is the largest in Western Canada, while the European ceramics collection is one of the two finest in the country. Additionally, MOA’s archives house the Museum’s institutional records and extensive holdings from anthropologists, linguists, missionaries and other travellers.