Community Engaged Comics
The comics below are what Jen Shannon and John Swogger call "Community Engaged Comics" (CEC). CEC are basically applied comics that were developed for heritage- and community-based projects created with Indigenous communities and museums. Community Engaged Comics are a form of collaboration where the result is a comic, and so much more. The comics are a means for community engagement, for community members to discuss and build together what they want to communicate about their past, present, and future. Community partners direct the project from conception to implementation to evaluation, and they are in control of content and distribution. Community-based workshops, presentations, educational materials, and public events are part of CEC as well. You can find a "Guide to Community Engaged Comics" here that is free to download for non-commercial purposes.
NAGPRA Comics
NAGPRA Comics started as a storyboard Sonya and I created and presented at CU's Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies Indigenous Storytelling and the Law symposium in 2017. Then we worked with John to produce a graphic narrative about the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), focused on true stories about Native communities' experiences with repatriation under the law. We have presented this work at the American Anthropological Association meetings, Indigenous Comicon, ATALM, and the Graphic Justice conference, info here. The comic is available in print and for free online (see Publications, Presentations, & Exhibits). NAGPRA Issues 3 and 4 are in the works! |
Kumeyaay Visual Storytelling: Indigenous Histories of California
Check out the Kumeyaay VSP Project Website. This is a new comics series about the history of what we now call California from the perspective of members of the Kumeyaay Nation located just outside of San Diego. This collaboration is between Kumeyaay tribal historians, NAGPRA Comics producers Jen Shannon and John Swogger, and Jewyl Alderson from the San Diego County Office of Education. Tribal historian Ethan Banegas (Luiseno-Kumeyaay) is the project director. This project was initiated when we presented together with tribal historians Mike Connolly Miskwish (Campo Kumeyaay Nation) and Stan Rodriguez (Kumeyaay-Iipay, Santa Ysabel) at San Diego Comic Con. It is funded through a California Humanities for All grant submitted by the Campo Kumeyaay Nation and Jen's Whiting Public Engagement Fellowship. The project includes research, comics, community workshops, lesson plans, partnerships with local artists, a traveling banner exhibit, and more - stay tuned! |
Community-Based Comics Workshops John Swogger visited MHA Nation with me in April 2019 - we led comic art making workshops with kids and adults. It was a lot of fun! We produced a "Guide for Facilitating Comics Workshops" so that community members can go on to lead similar workshops after we leave. Find out more about the workshops and access the guide here. |
Building Collaborative Partnerships & Indigenous Centered Museum Practice
We are working with Native American communities to learn about, properly display, and better care for museum collections. We are encouraging reciprocal, long term relationships with originating communities. We are providing opportunities for students to learn collaborative practices.
School for Advanced Research's Community+Museum: Guidelines for Collaboration I was honored to be invited to participate in an initiative that is aimed at increasing the quality of collaborations between museums and Indigenous peoples. I participated in vetting sessions for Guidelines for Collaboration that are aimed at facilitating greater community access to museums and helping museums responsibly provide that access. There are guidelines for both museums (Museum+Community) and for Native communities (Community+Museum). Check out the "Critical Considerations" that are useful for anyone working at the intersection of museums and Indigenous peoples. Stay tuned for more information about an initiative I participate in: The Indigenous Collections Care (ICC) Working Group "grew out of an expanding interest in prioritizing and privileging decolonization practices on all levels of museum work. Group members represent both Indigenous and non-Indigenous museum professionals and academics, Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, collections staff, and NAGPRA coordinators. The ICC Working Group is creating a Guide, which will be a reference tool for people who interact regularly with Native American collections, including those at all levels of experience and exposure. The Guide will offer scalable considerations and templates for implementation, advocacy, and creation of policies and procedures..." The initiative is led by Marla Taylor, Laura Bryant, and Laura Elliff Cruz who, along with Sylvanus Paul, gave a presentation about the project here, hosted by SAR. More information about this project and their contact information is here. And another exciting development in the field: "The Core Standards for Museums with Native American Collections (CSMNAC)....The CSMNAC document will serve to guide all aspects of work within museums holding Native collections, for the purpose of educating governing and executive boards and staff, collections and curatorial staff as well as education, development, security, facilities and volunteers. In addition, through aligning American Alliance of Museums Core Standards with culturally specific engagement and visitor experience, the document will set forth a set of tools that will enable museums to move confidently in the direction of decolonizing and sensitizing practices." Find out more here. Collaborative Exhibition Making: Thinking about different models for community participation Here is a document that I wrote for a Native community as they began planning for a new cultural center. It lists the various benefits and challenges of some typical models for community participation in content development. I love brainstorming about different collaborative approaches to community-based work! Additional Resources for collections care informed by Indigenous peoples include a resource list for learning about Native American protocols for research materials here. See also the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage's Shared Stewardship of Collections statement. And, the Native American Center for Excellence has produced a helpful guide regarding respectful "Steps for Conducting Research and Evaluation in Native Communities." For a good general, informative resource about Native peoples in the US check out the "American Indian and Alaska Native Culture Card: A Guide to Build Cultural Awareness." In 2022 Smithsonian Institution implemented a Shared Stewardship and Ethical Returns Policy across all of its museums; each museum includes their own procedures for this policy at their website, including National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of Natural History. In 2023 Amy Shakespeare created an online guide to repatriation in Europe titled Routes to Return. |
Building a program in Social Science Communication (especially Cultural Anthropology!)
This is a work in progress...and an argument I recently made with some wonderful collaborators in a 2021 article titled, “Anthropology, Empathy, and the Need for More Social Science Communication" in the Science Communication journal. The idea is to build a program in social science communication focusing on training and resources for communicating anthropological research to the public. I also believe these skills are important for sharing research back to communities with whom we work (I teach a class connecting collaborative anthropology and the public communication of research). If this idea excites you, get in touch! I am happy to build a network of people dedicated to this kind of initiative or who know of existing models to think with.
Here's the pitch: Studies show there is a growing empathy deficit in America and our public discourse is increasingly becoming polarized. Let’s utilize the key strengths of anthropology—its ability to cultivate empathy and complex understandings of our world—and increase its visibility in science reporting. We want to train anthropologists to communicate their research more effectively and engage science journalists to incorporate anthropological research and experts in their reporting. A program would include instruction for anthropologists and allied social scientists in the craft of storytelling through social science communication workshops and an online certificate course in social science communication. We envision a web portal that would host social science media and provide resources on science communication to anthropologists and journalists. We aim for anthropologists to feel empowered to communicate their work to broad audiences, journalists to be motivated and supported to publish anthropological research more often, and the public to have more access and better understanding of anthropological research.
Ultimately, the idea is to increase the value and accessibility of anthropology research to journalists and a broad public audience. We want to increase public (social) science literac, and contribute to "raising the information level of public discourse" (Guenther et al. 2016); this will provide people with more context and nuanced understandings of issues that affect society. Increasing public "cultural competence" (CDC 2014, 22) enables people to understand, work, and communicate more effectively and leads to improved society well-being.
Here's the pitch: Studies show there is a growing empathy deficit in America and our public discourse is increasingly becoming polarized. Let’s utilize the key strengths of anthropology—its ability to cultivate empathy and complex understandings of our world—and increase its visibility in science reporting. We want to train anthropologists to communicate their research more effectively and engage science journalists to incorporate anthropological research and experts in their reporting. A program would include instruction for anthropologists and allied social scientists in the craft of storytelling through social science communication workshops and an online certificate course in social science communication. We envision a web portal that would host social science media and provide resources on science communication to anthropologists and journalists. We aim for anthropologists to feel empowered to communicate their work to broad audiences, journalists to be motivated and supported to publish anthropological research more often, and the public to have more access and better understanding of anthropological research.
Ultimately, the idea is to increase the value and accessibility of anthropology research to journalists and a broad public audience. We want to increase public (social) science literac, and contribute to "raising the information level of public discourse" (Guenther et al. 2016); this will provide people with more context and nuanced understandings of issues that affect society. Increasing public "cultural competence" (CDC 2014, 22) enables people to understand, work, and communicate more effectively and leads to improved society well-being.
MHA Oral History Project & MHA Collaborative Film Project
We worked together with the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation Three Tribes Museum and the Case family (Rev. Harold Case donated the MHA collection at the CU Museum of Natural History). We house a collection of over 400 Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara items that were donated by Rev. Case's family in our museum. Our relationship with the MHA Nation began with a NAGPRA consultation and return of sacred objects, and then developed into a research partnership.
MHA Interactive Community Website (2010-2021)
We have built an interactive, password protected website for use by MHA Nation members and the Case family to host images of our collection as well as Case family archival photos that our students are digitized. The State Historical Society of North Dakota posted their archival images on our site as well so that community members can access, and perhaps identify individuals, in the images. MHA Nation community members can access the website here; to request a login please email me.
My Cry Gets up to my Throat: Reflections on Rev. Case, the Garrison Dam, and the Oil Boom of North Dakota (2014)
Following a request from our community partners, we also created a documentary about the life and times of Rev. Case based on oral history interviews which was made available online in January 2015 (links below). This video shows how community members' experiences in the past shape how they understand the present - from the building of Garrison Dam to the Oil Boom today. The making of this video was an iterative process of planning, research, and review with our MHA community partners and the Case family.
View documentary trailer (5min)
View Public version (47min)
View MHA Nation version (1hr)
MHA Collaborative Film Project (2015-2017)
Our work together continued with a new MHA Collaborative Film documentary workshop project about contemporary life in partnership with the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College (who provided college credits to participants) and Dakota Media Access. You can learn more at the project website or follow us on Facebook. This project was funded by a CU Innovative Seed Grant.
MHA Tribal Citizen Science Project (2015-2016)
We also worked together on a citizen science project with teachers and students on the reservation in partnership with the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College. You can learn more about this citizen science project in a news piece here. Informed by workshops with local teachers we developed lesson plans for students to explore questions about air and water quality, animal behavior, public health, and the impacts of media. We kept project participants informed through a newsletter. This project was funded by a CU Outreach grant.
It's amazing the wonderful and unanticipated directions collaborative partnerships will take you! Below are some photos showing our evolving work together.
MHA Interactive Community Website (2010-2021)
We have built an interactive, password protected website for use by MHA Nation members and the Case family to host images of our collection as well as Case family archival photos that our students are digitized. The State Historical Society of North Dakota posted their archival images on our site as well so that community members can access, and perhaps identify individuals, in the images. MHA Nation community members can access the website here; to request a login please email me.
My Cry Gets up to my Throat: Reflections on Rev. Case, the Garrison Dam, and the Oil Boom of North Dakota (2014)
Following a request from our community partners, we also created a documentary about the life and times of Rev. Case based on oral history interviews which was made available online in January 2015 (links below). This video shows how community members' experiences in the past shape how they understand the present - from the building of Garrison Dam to the Oil Boom today. The making of this video was an iterative process of planning, research, and review with our MHA community partners and the Case family.
View documentary trailer (5min)
View Public version (47min)
View MHA Nation version (1hr)
MHA Collaborative Film Project (2015-2017)
Our work together continued with a new MHA Collaborative Film documentary workshop project about contemporary life in partnership with the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College (who provided college credits to participants) and Dakota Media Access. You can learn more at the project website or follow us on Facebook. This project was funded by a CU Innovative Seed Grant.
MHA Tribal Citizen Science Project (2015-2016)
We also worked together on a citizen science project with teachers and students on the reservation in partnership with the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College. You can learn more about this citizen science project in a news piece here. Informed by workshops with local teachers we developed lesson plans for students to explore questions about air and water quality, animal behavior, public health, and the impacts of media. We kept project participants informed through a newsletter. This project was funded by a CU Outreach grant.
It's amazing the wonderful and unanticipated directions collaborative partnerships will take you! Below are some photos showing our evolving work together.
Bougainville Island: Connecting Communities to Collections
- An online exhibit, "Sincerely Bud Johnson," was published on March 8, 2022.
- A Public talk by Dr. Jeffrey Noro, Founder of the Kainake Project, about Bougainville, from May 31, 2022.
- Bougainville Primary Source Book was shared with Bougainville Islanders in 2019.
Bougainville Island is geographically part of the Solomon Islands, but is politically part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (previously North Solomons Province) in Papua New Guinea, and is the largest island in this region. World War II had a drastic impact on this island. During the war, bombs resulted in loss of life and cultural heritage. The island’s population declined by 25% after the war, and foreigners outnumbered islanders three to one. This project seeks to respond to Bougainville community members’ call to museums to bring heritage knowledge back home.
We have a collection of over 300 items from Bougainville Island, collected in 1949 by Conrad "Bud" Johnson, who was a student at CU and a soldier at the time. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science has a collection of Johnson's photographs from his visit to Bougainville Island. After anthropology student Isabel Vinsonhaler researched the collection in my research collection class in 2015, and museum studies student Jane Richardson digitized the collection in 2018, we reached out to members of the Kainake Project on the island of Bougainville. Through an Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania Grant to Return Indigenous Knowledge to Pacific Island Communities grant, we combined the object images and records, photographs, and associated archival documents into a "primary source book" which we mailed to Bougainville in August 2019. Undergraduate student Jack Piephoff helped prepare the book, and he and University of Denver graduate student Manuel Ferreira worked with me to create plans for a small exhibit in the CU Museum of Natural History about this collection, place, and partnership.
We are experimenting with Facebook to facilitate Bougainville Islanders' participation in the development of this exhibit. If you are from Bougainville, please like the page and join the conversation. If you are a museum with collections from Bougainville, please post and introduce yourself and what is in your collection. Thank you!
In 2022 the Johnson family - Bud's son and daughter - reached out to me! A statement from Barbara is now available to read at the Facebook page. She wrote, "I grew up hearing stories from my father about his time on Pacific Islands when he was in the army but I didn’t realize exactly why he was there and what he was doing...I have told all of my siblings My father would have loved all of this."
When we first began working together, Mr. Junior Novera, Program Leader for Kainake, expressed to us that these materials “are vital for the communities and people of Bougainville to rediscover and trackback on their history. It is unfortunate for us that nothing as such you have in your museum can be found today on Bougainville. That is why we are so privileged to connect and collaborate on this project.” Dr. Jeffrey Noro, Executive Director of The Kainake Project, told us “we are delighted to be able to collaborate with you on this museum project because we feel that historical information as this, is critical for Bougainville, both as tangible and intangible…to create systems and processes for digital and print repatriation of collections back to Bougainville. There are many collections from Bougainville that are stored in museums around the globe, and thankfully have been preserved. Sadly, we have lost many of these…[this] is a great way to regain some of these lost knowledges.”
Thanks to a University of Colorado Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant, undergraduate Jack Piephoff was able to spend time researching this collection over the summer of 2019 for this project.
- A Public talk by Dr. Jeffrey Noro, Founder of the Kainake Project, about Bougainville, from May 31, 2022.
- Bougainville Primary Source Book was shared with Bougainville Islanders in 2019.
Bougainville Island is geographically part of the Solomon Islands, but is politically part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (previously North Solomons Province) in Papua New Guinea, and is the largest island in this region. World War II had a drastic impact on this island. During the war, bombs resulted in loss of life and cultural heritage. The island’s population declined by 25% after the war, and foreigners outnumbered islanders three to one. This project seeks to respond to Bougainville community members’ call to museums to bring heritage knowledge back home.
We have a collection of over 300 items from Bougainville Island, collected in 1949 by Conrad "Bud" Johnson, who was a student at CU and a soldier at the time. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science has a collection of Johnson's photographs from his visit to Bougainville Island. After anthropology student Isabel Vinsonhaler researched the collection in my research collection class in 2015, and museum studies student Jane Richardson digitized the collection in 2018, we reached out to members of the Kainake Project on the island of Bougainville. Through an Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania Grant to Return Indigenous Knowledge to Pacific Island Communities grant, we combined the object images and records, photographs, and associated archival documents into a "primary source book" which we mailed to Bougainville in August 2019. Undergraduate student Jack Piephoff helped prepare the book, and he and University of Denver graduate student Manuel Ferreira worked with me to create plans for a small exhibit in the CU Museum of Natural History about this collection, place, and partnership.
We are experimenting with Facebook to facilitate Bougainville Islanders' participation in the development of this exhibit. If you are from Bougainville, please like the page and join the conversation. If you are a museum with collections from Bougainville, please post and introduce yourself and what is in your collection. Thank you!
In 2022 the Johnson family - Bud's son and daughter - reached out to me! A statement from Barbara is now available to read at the Facebook page. She wrote, "I grew up hearing stories from my father about his time on Pacific Islands when he was in the army but I didn’t realize exactly why he was there and what he was doing...I have told all of my siblings My father would have loved all of this."
When we first began working together, Mr. Junior Novera, Program Leader for Kainake, expressed to us that these materials “are vital for the communities and people of Bougainville to rediscover and trackback on their history. It is unfortunate for us that nothing as such you have in your museum can be found today on Bougainville. That is why we are so privileged to connect and collaborate on this project.” Dr. Jeffrey Noro, Executive Director of The Kainake Project, told us “we are delighted to be able to collaborate with you on this museum project because we feel that historical information as this, is critical for Bougainville, both as tangible and intangible…to create systems and processes for digital and print repatriation of collections back to Bougainville. There are many collections from Bougainville that are stored in museums around the globe, and thankfully have been preserved. Sadly, we have lost many of these…[this] is a great way to regain some of these lost knowledges.”
Thanks to a University of Colorado Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant, undergraduate Jack Piephoff was able to spend time researching this collection over the summer of 2019 for this project.
iShare: Connecting Museums and Communities East and West
In 2010 we were awarded a grant by the American Alliance of Museums to work with the Navajo Nation Museum, the National Taiwan Museum, and the Laiyi Indigenous Museum of Taiwan to create an online collaborative web application and public website. For more information about the iShare project through our quarterly reports, which we designed as newsletters for our partners, see http://en.projectishare.com/galleries/34.
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Mesa Verde National Park Collaboration with the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History Museum Studies Program
Mesa Verde National Park began a partnership with the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History museum studies program faculty and students that was focused on biodiversity in the park and students facilitating visitor experiences through summer programs. The partnership has now expanded to include working together to redesign of the Chapin Mesa Archaeology Museum. The Anthropology Section of the museum is helping to facilitate descendant community participation. We worked with Native community members to determine an appropriate process for their participation in the collaboration. My presentation about this to the park is available here.
I produce a newsletter for the associated tribes to ensure everyone is informed throughout the process. Newsletters and project reports are available here.
A 5 minute video overview of the project is available here from CU PhD student Scarlett Engle, whose research focuses on documenting the collaboration and the changing relationship between Native Nations and the National Park Service in the US. A presentation at a University College London forum by Dr. Woody Aguilar (San Ildefonso Pueblo) and myself about the project is available here.
Ongoing updates about the progress of the redesign can be found at the Park's website here.
I produce a newsletter for the associated tribes to ensure everyone is informed throughout the process. Newsletters and project reports are available here.
A 5 minute video overview of the project is available here from CU PhD student Scarlett Engle, whose research focuses on documenting the collaboration and the changing relationship between Native Nations and the National Park Service in the US. A presentation at a University College London forum by Dr. Woody Aguilar (San Ildefonso Pueblo) and myself about the project is available here.
Ongoing updates about the progress of the redesign can be found at the Park's website here.
Digitizing the Anthropology Collections at the CU Museum of Natural History
The Anthropology Section at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History has built a digital archive of its collections to better facilitate working with and providing access to Native American communities and professional and student researchers. This provides the technology and materials for students to build their skills in contemporary museum practice. In 2016 we made the entire anthropology collections database available online:
CU Museum of Natural History Anthropology Collections Search
Click on "Anthropology and Archaeology Database" at https://www.colorado.edu/cumuseum/research-collections/anthropology/databases-research-tools
Please note: Not all items have images. If there is erroneous information or an image that should be removed from public viewing, please contact collections manager Christina Cain at 303-492-2198 or [email protected].
CU Museum of Natural History Anthropology Collections Search
Click on "Anthropology and Archaeology Database" at https://www.colorado.edu/cumuseum/research-collections/anthropology/databases-research-tools
Please note: Not all items have images. If there is erroneous information or an image that should be removed from public viewing, please contact collections manager Christina Cain at 303-492-2198 or [email protected].
NAGPRA Consultation and Documentation Grants
The CU Museum of Natural History Anthropology Section was awarded two separate grants with two tribes to document and consult on ethnographic collections. Our grant-funded registrar inventoried the tribes’ materials in our collection and worked with NAGPRA liaisons to provide more accurate information for the museum catalogue and to identify which items should be considered under the Native Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990). In 2014 we completed repatriation of sacred objects to both tribes. For more information about NAGPRA grants see http://www.nps.gov/nagpra/grants/INDEX.HTM.
The Field of Museum Anthropology
A core value in contemporary museum anthropology is commitment to engaged, Indigenous community-oriented work in and outside the museum. In an effort to support and strengthen the field and the future of Museum Anthropology, Josh Bell (Smithsonian Natural History Museum), John Lukavic (Denver Art Museum), Erica Lehrer (Concordia University) and I co-organized the first independent Council for Museum Anthropology conference in Montreal, May 25-27, 2017: Museum Anthropology Futures.
In 2019, a new group of organizers in Santa Fe hosted the next CMA Conference, Museums Different from September 18-22. Learn more at the CMA Museum Anthropology Blog and the CMA Facebook Page. |
CUMNH Anthropology Section Textile Collections Projects
We are constantly working to improve the conditions and documentation of our collections.
Southwest Textile Conservation Project
The University of Colorado Museum of Natural History’s collection of Southwestern textiles is one of the most comprehensive, complete, and best researched collections in the world. The Southwest textiles, a systematic collection mainly assembled by former curator Dr. Joe Ben Wheat, includes over 900 pieces. For the last 30 years the Clark family and the Toh-Atin Gallery of Durango, CO have supported the preservation of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History’s collections. Jackson Clark Sr., a friend of Joe Ben Wheat’s, began raising funds to care for the collection, and the Toh-Atin Gallery, owned by Clark’s son, Jackson Clark, continues this tradition today.
Thanks to the support of the Clark family and the Toh-Atin Gallery, the museum has begun the Southwest Textile Conservation Project to conserve ten textiles over five years using funds raised from the gallery's annual auction. We began this project with the conservation of two Navajo textiles collected by John Wesley Powell in 1870. Powell’s grandniece brought these textiles to our museum 100 years later. In 2015, they were stabilized and cared for by a professional conservator in preparation for flat storage.
Southwest Textile Conservation Project
The University of Colorado Museum of Natural History’s collection of Southwestern textiles is one of the most comprehensive, complete, and best researched collections in the world. The Southwest textiles, a systematic collection mainly assembled by former curator Dr. Joe Ben Wheat, includes over 900 pieces. For the last 30 years the Clark family and the Toh-Atin Gallery of Durango, CO have supported the preservation of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History’s collections. Jackson Clark Sr., a friend of Joe Ben Wheat’s, began raising funds to care for the collection, and the Toh-Atin Gallery, owned by Clark’s son, Jackson Clark, continues this tradition today.
Thanks to the support of the Clark family and the Toh-Atin Gallery, the museum has begun the Southwest Textile Conservation Project to conserve ten textiles over five years using funds raised from the gallery's annual auction. We began this project with the conservation of two Navajo textiles collected by John Wesley Powell in 1870. Powell’s grandniece brought these textiles to our museum 100 years later. In 2015, they were stabilized and cared for by a professional conservator in preparation for flat storage.
Textile Rehousing Project (and baskets, too!)
Out of the 937 textiles of the Joe Ben Wheat textile collection housed at the museum, 365 of those were rolled in two compactor units. The 572 remaining textiles were stored folded, in metal Lane cases. During 2016-2017, we removed folded textiles from the lane cases, photographed, rolled, and rehoused them. The majority of the basket collection was also rehoused to make room for the new textile shelves.
New Catalogue Project
The museum is currently working to produce a free catalogue of all 150 textiles accessioned by the museum since 1997, when Dr. Joe Ben Wheat’s research ended. This colorful catalogue, which will be available online, will be a visual companion to Joe Ben Wheat’s Blanket Weaving in the Southwest (2003), edited by Anne Hedlund.
The museum is currently working to produce a free catalogue of all 150 textiles accessioned by the museum since 1997, when Dr. Joe Ben Wheat’s research ended. This colorful catalogue, which will be available online, will be a visual companion to Joe Ben Wheat’s Blanket Weaving in the Southwest (2003), edited by Anne Hedlund.
Recent Textile Accessions
We continue to build our famous Southwest textile collection.
We continue to build our famous Southwest textile collection.
We are very pleased to be accessioning a 2019 replica of a Navajo First Phase Chief's Blanket - a modern artwork that was created using traditional materials (Churro wool and indigo). Bertha Harvey is very excited that her piece will be in our museum, and so are we! Thanks to Jackson Clark for making this possible.
In June of 2015 we received a donation of twelve Navajo textiles.
University Museums: Challenges and Opportunities
We continue to think critically and creatively about the unique institution of the university museum.