PLATEAU PEOPLES
The Museum of Northern Arizona reopens their Native American art gallery with an emphasis on collaboration.
The Museum of Northern Arizona reopens their Native American art gallery with an emphasis on collaboration.
FLAGSTAFF, AZ
In 1980, the Museum of Northern Arizona opened a gallery of Native American art. After nearly 40 years, the space has been expanded and reimagined in a new permanent exhibition titled Native Peoples of the Colorado Plateau.
The museum’s president emeritus Robert Breunig, who curated the original 1980 exhibition, also led the modern installation, and he notes that the approach to this type of exhibition has shifted dramatically in the intervening years. “Although we had quotes [from tribe members] in the previous iteration, it was still in the third-person voice. ‘The Hopi do this, the Navajo do that.’ We wanted to make a shift from the anthropological voice to the community voice,” he explains. To accomplish that goal, the museum partnered with 42 members of the Colorado Plateau tribes to select the hundreds of items that will be on display. Tribal members were also key in developing the text for the exhibition. A table at the center of the exhibition will showcase each tribe’s approach to celebration, adornment, food, toys and games.
“For us, tribal knowledge is sacred, and much of it cannot be shared with everyone. Traditional knowledge is taught by our elders and given when one is ready. Parts can only be known by specially prepared individuals,” says
Ophelia Watahomigie-corliss, a Havasupai council member who assisted in the creation of the exhibition. “Here, we are sharing knowledge that we are comfortable giving to the world.”
More than 340 items from the museum’s vast collection were chosen for display, from historic relics to contemporary works, including a skateboard deck painted by Hopi artist Mavasta Honyouti.
“Honyouti’s deck illustrates one of the major themes of the exhibition— that these cultures are living, thriving and evolving—not just a part of the Colorado Plateau’s past,” says museum CEO Carrie Heinonen. “A common refrain that echoes throughout the entire gallery is ‘We are still here.’
One of the themes central
"All things on the [Colorado] Plateau have meaning, have life—have a spirit that we communicate with every day when we get up, every night before we go to bed." —Charley Bullets, Southern Paiute
to all the tribes is how they are honoring the history and traditions that define their culture while simultaneously living in the modern world.”
Ultimately, the exhibition serves as a much-needed coming-together. “We live in a time, where I feel very strongly that people in different cultures need to have active dialogues with each other, and we need to build a landscape of mutual respect and empathy across cultures,” Breunig says. “I hope that this exhibition helps in that effort.”
Native Peoples of the Colorado Plateau opens on April 14 to tribal communities, and to the public on April 15.