A pop-up exhibit chronicling the area’s industrial heritage opened Saturday at the Paris Museum.
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“The Canadian Industrial Heritage Center partnered with local institutions including the Brant Museum and Archives, Paris Museum and Historical Society, Waterford Heritage and Agricultural Museum, and the St. George Museum and Archives to work together and showcase different artifacts that we might not have the opportunity to display in our own separate museums,” said Lillia Dockree, community outreach coordinator at the Brant Historical Society.
Inventors, Industries, and Marketing is the first of what will be three renditions of pop-up exhibits made possible through a $35,000 Ontario Trillium Foundation Resilient Communities grant, and showcases items from Penman’s, Massey-Harris, Cockshutt Plow Company and Norfolk County food manufacturers such as the Villa Nova Creamery.
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CIHC president Dr. Christina Han drew inspiration for the pop-up exhibit after seeing a “tiny museum-in-a-box on wheels” from the Korean government while she was in Ottawa two years ago.
“Why don’t we bring together artifacts from our local museums about industrial heritage, showcase them, and rotate them so different communities can have access to the stories and artifacts,” Han shared.
After three months on display at the Paris Museum, the exhibit will move to Waterford, St. George, and Brantford before the next rendition is released.
Han said the second pop-up will feature the textile industry, while the final installment will be about telecommunications.
“Like the creative predecessors of our region – inventors, entrepreneurs and people involved in marketing and advertising – we came together to tell the amazing history of industries in this region,” Han noted. “In this process we learned a lot and discovered amazing artifacts that have been sitting in our storage for decades.”
The opening on Saturday afternoon included a theatrical piece by Brant Theater Workshops telling the story of the beginnings of the town of Paris, the gypsum mining in the area, and the birth of large industries.
“We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, and that gives us the sense that we have to leave things better for those who have come after us,” said Brantford-Brant MPP Will Bouma. “Thank you for caring about who we were. I think a community that doesn’t know its past is somewhat lost in the present, and I think it’s impossible to have a future.”
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