This working loom at Kamloops Museum and Archives is part of an interactive exhibit called Common Threads.

(SHANNON AINSLIE / iNFOnews.ca)

An exciting new exhibit at the Kamloops Museum and Archives invites visitors to not only learn about the history of wool in the region, but to gather together and enjoy an interactive cultural experience.

“Some people think of museums as places where you can’t touch anything or speak too loudly and it’s about looking at things through glass, with hushed voices in deep thought and contemplation,” said museum supervisor, Julia Cyr.

“That’s just not what museums are, maybe there were like that, but this about a place to convene, share knowledge and connect with each other.” 

The exhibit called Common Threads is located on the second floor in a welcoming, brightly lit space where wood and textile artifacts surround a dining table topped with baskets of wool.

Visitors can move through a high touch exhibit that shows the transformation of wool from raw fibre to a yarn, to cloth, then try their hand at weaving on a loom donated by local fibre artist Audrey Meuse. 

“Text panels and videos take your through the process, hand processing the wool, shearing, sorting, washing and carding,” Cyr said. “Then there is spinning and weaving. The loom is interactive with different hands coming together contributing.” 

Supervisor at Kamloops Museum and Archives, Julia Cyr sits in an exhibit called Common Threads.

(SHANNON AINSLIE / iNFOnews.ca)

The idea for the exhibit came about earlier this year when museum staff met with members of the community and staff of the Royal BC Museum and the Secwépemc Museum and Heritage Park, and got some valuable feedback.

“What I heard from some community members is they miss the experience of touch in museums and so we have high touch areas as part of this exhibition,” Cyr said. “The timing came together where it’s fall, it’s cosy season, you think about wool, you think about the feedback of increased touch and the connection back to something that’s authentic.”

Part of the exhibit — and how it got its name — includes different cultural groups gathering and sharing their stories, ancestry and cultures with others through textiles, like threads of the community being woven and pulled together.

The Common Threads exhibit at Kamloops Museum and Archives includes stations where visitors learn how wool goes from a raw form to a textile.

(SHANNON AINSLIE / iNFOnews.ca)

An area of space is brightly coloured with examples of clothing from the Hispanic Society of Kamloops and will change every month to showcase clothing from other cultural communities. Members of those communities will come in to talk about their culture through the Things We Carry With Us: A Fabric, Clothing, and Culture Gathering Series.

“Often when we work with different cultural communities in Kamloops, one of the things we see is this desire to share clothing and textiles,” said museum educator Meghan Stewart. “That’s a way we pass things down through our communities, our history and our ancestry.”

Curator Matt MacIntosh said other pieces of the exhibit include the story of wool in the region, and the story of the relationship between what’s natural that becomes cultural.

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Textiles from the Hispanic Society of Kamloops are part of an exhibit at Kamloops Museum and Archives.

(SHANNON AINSLIE / iNFOnews.ca)

“We take in objects that might have been part of a family or maybe it’s a fossil embedded in the earth," he said. "They don’t necessarily become history or cultural examples until they’re recognized as such. Wool is sometimes seen that way, sometimes less so.”

He said sheep and people have been in the area for thousands of years and wool is part of the natural movement of humans and animals, as well as part of the region’s settlement history when sheep farming began and there was a settling of territories.

“Wool production and the need for sheep was an incentive for people to move here,” he said. “The government provided tools for people to settle here very cheaply in spite of the fact Indigenous people already lived here, so there’s a problematic history there too. We wanted to touch on these things in a kind of subtle way but make sure they’re out there.”

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This loom at Kamloops Museum and Artifacts is believed to be from the 1700s.

(SHANNON AINSLIE / iNFOnews.ca)

MacIntosh said the interactive nature of the exhibit supports the sharing of oral histories between elders and youth, which is considered especially important to Indigenous cultures and is making a resurgence.

“There are casual, spontaneous gatherings where an older person orally transmits cultural knowledge to a younger person,” he said. “In communities and museums, a renewed emphasis on the transmission of oral histories and cultural knowledge is making the rounds.”

In the centre of the space is a large wooden loom that is believed to be from the 1700s.

“You look at the wood, the grain in the wood and you think about all the people that touched this loom,” Cyr said. “Who interacted with it, who didn’t. The craftsmanship is there where everything fits so perfectly together, it’s gorgeous and part of it is being able to appreciate the work that went into it.”

A fur press, archived photographs, and a wall of different types of wool to touch are just a few of the other things to explore at the exhibit. 

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Baskets of wool and tools sit on a table at Kamloops Museum and Archives.

(SHANNON AINSLIE / iNFOnews.ca)

Since Common Threads opened last month, Cyr said there has been a lot of interest with all ages stopping by, including groups from local schools.

“We don’t have an acquisitions budget at the museum, all of the collection is through donation so it’s a community museum,” Cyr said. “We’re really privileged to work with the community and share a community voice.”

Kamloops Museum and Archives is open from Tuesday to Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  Admission is by donation, and Common Threads will run until March 8.

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