Maya R. Hirschman

Maya Hirschman has been working in Canadian museums and galleries, large and small, for over 25 years and as a curator since 2006.  From travelling exhibits, membership, and education programming at the ROM, to curating collaborative projects in Whitehorse,YT, and London, ON, to directing a small museum founded by veterans, Maya has made a mark.  Her exhibition topics have been wide-ranging (and include fashion histories of both marriage and mourning, Black settlement in Upper Canada, Indigenous-Colonial relationships, Second World War Allied radar history), but always with an emphasis on identity, community, narrative, and interpretation.

She came to the Faculty of Information in order to explore intersections of practice and theory in community museums. Maya is drafting her dissertation, titled, “Community of Echoes: The Secrets of Radar Museum as a Distinct Site of Social Work,” about how the Second World War Royal Canadian Air Force radar veteran community carried out memory and history work to preserve and exhibit their officially secret war-time service, while providing for each other important social work practices of care, relationship building, and empowerment.

Museums, especially community museums; interpretation; memory; community identity; secrecy; Second World War RCAF; veterans

• M.A. Interpretive Studies, University of Leicester
• PGDip. Museum Management and Curatorship, Fleming College
• B.A. Hon. History, English & History, University of Toronto

• Canada 150 Parliamentary Award, 2017
• London Community Foundation Vital People Grant, 2013