‘Shell is Proud to Present… The Spirit Sings’: Museum Sponsorship and Public Relations in Oil Country

Abstract

This article re-examines the renowned Canadian exhibition, The Spirit Sings: Artistic Traditions of Canada’s First Peoples (1988) through a lens of corporate, national, and institutional interests. The author positions The Spirit Sings as a productive historical case study for contemporary questions of decolonization and divestment in museums. Using archival and interview findings from her doctoral research, the author highlights the sponsorship and public relations elements of the exhibition, which she argues have been missing from past analyses. Ultimately, the author uses this case study to question the relevance of current debates over oil sponsorship for museums that operate within extractive economies. The article concludes by calling for further critical research around the organizational processes of museums and their participation in corporate legitimation.