American Indian museum’s newtack highlights European-native “moment”
washington » The confusion begins with the entrance to the Smithsonian Institution’sNational Museum of the American Indian, a soaring, curving stone building at the southeastern corner of the Mall.
The entrance faces east — a symbolic nod to the many American Indians who orient their homes to the east and the rising sun — but that makes it difficult for visitors coming from the Mall orMetro to find their way in, and entering through the back door diminishes the dramatic effect of the Potomac Atrium.
The two major exhibitions on the upper floors are similarly confounding. “Our Lives” celebrates the survival of the dispossessed without chronicling the policies and battles that brought them close to extinction, while “Our Universes” spotlights the creation myths of seven nations without drawing any connections or contrasts between them.
“The initial point was to celebrate the ongoing existence of these native peoples,” museum director Kevin Gover, a member of the Pawnee nation with degrees from Princeton University and the New Mexico College of Law, said. “We took it to an extreme, and the narrative got lost.”
Like visitors wandering its remarkably empty halls, the NMAI is still trying to find its way.
The first national museum to focus exclusively on American Indians, the NMAI opened in 2004with the goal of redefining the relationship between the museumworld and native nations. It collaborated with Indians on everything from design to the exhibitions, going out to the reservations and inviting Indians to join them in developing the programs.
But in ceding authority to these committees, the museum gave up control of the visitor experience and created an overall message that felt disjointed and incomplete.
As it enters its second decade, it has dramatically changed its approach, and a new exhibition, “Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations,” underscores its philosophical shift.
Rather than employ community curators and multiple perspectives, the NMAI brought in writer and Indian-rights activist Suzan Shown Harjo to curate an exhibition examining the history and the contemporary consequences of nine legal agreements between the United States and native nations.
“This is a big moment,” Gover said. “It’s important thatwe be responsible for the narrative, to say, ‘These things are true; these stories are true.’ Wemust treat Native American history as American history.”
Such bold statements were not part of the museum’s early focus. Estab- lished in 1989 by an act of Congress, it took 15 years to open the five-story stone building that would celebrate the language, culture, history and arts of thousands of indigenous tribes and nations across the entire hemisphere.
To achieve this, the museum’s leaders built a network of community curators and let them tell their own stories. With a collection of more than 836,000 objects and three sites (including the Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Md., and the George Gustav Heye Center in New York), the museum opened with exhibitions featuring about 10,000 objects chosen and organized by community members and curators.
Such engagement has been in vogue since the 1990s, said ElizabethMerritt, director of the Center for the Future ofMuseums at the American Alliance of Museums inWashington.
“The people whose history you are commemorating often know more than the curators do, and they have something substantive to bring to the table,” Merritt said. “People feel ownership of their history, and there can be tension and resentment if someone comes in and says, ‘I’m going to tell your story.’ “
Of course, crowd-sourcing an exhibition can lead to tension, too. The NMAI was roundly criticized for its “empower the people” approach, with critics denouncing its choice of affirmation over authority and blasting the emptiness of the soaring space.
But Gover insists that the initial exhibitions were successful; as proof, he points to the 2004 opening, when 25,000 American Indians marched in a procession from the Mall to the museum.
“When 25,000 native people showed up to march, that showed they got it right,” he said.
Attendance figures tell a different story. After attracting 2.2 million visitors in its first year, the NMAI has averaged about 1.4 million visitors a year since then, with fewer than a million through the first eight months of this year. The three most popular Smithsonian museums— Natural History, Air and Space, and American History— attracted 5.6 million, 5.2 million and 3.1 million guests last year.
The NMAI’s budget is the second-largest in the Smithsonian constellation. Last year’s budget was $35.8 million, in line with the other large facilities, including Air and Space ($29.7 million) and American History ($31.7 million).
The museum has 40,000 members, its leaders boast; the only part of the Smithsonian with more is the National Museum of the African American History and Culture, which is ex- pected to open in 2016. It has 60,000 members.
That the NMAI is best known for its cafeteria is another sore point. Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe is included on many lists of best museum restaurants, and, according to several travel guides, it is the main reason to visit.
Jolene Rickard, a Cornell University professor and director of its American Indian Program, said NMAI should not apologize for Mitsitam.
“The museum understood a core value of indigenous peoplewas food. The nourishment of the body is as important as the nourishment of the mind or spirit,” she said.
Both “Nation to Nation” and the course correction it heralds have been in the works for years, said Gover. Three years ago, he hired David Penney from the Detroit Institute of Arts to fill the new position of associate director of museum scholarship. After an internal study of the museum’s programming, they and other senior staff members determined that more focus was needed on “contact”— when the Europeans and the native nations met— and the consequences of their engagement.
“In many respects, the moment thatmost shaped theworldwe live in today was thatmoment of contact between Europeans and native people,” Gover said. “Theworld changed dramatically. Much of the effort is to restore native history to theworld narrative.”