Sending Their Ancestors Home
Sending Their Ancestors Home explores the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), a federal legislation passed in 1990, and its effects on both Native American culture and museum ethics. Learn more about the history of this law as well as how museums have taken strides to comply, or dodge, the ramifications of legislation.
Where do museums and cultural institution stand 30 years later? What work is there still left to do? How has this Museum grown and taken accountability for past acts of injustice? Sending Their Ancestors Home, created in close consultation with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the Gila River Indian Community, attempts to answer these questions. This exhibit was generously funded by the S’eḏav Va’aki Museum Foundation.
A:shiwi A:wan Ulohnanne: The Zuni World
Maps act as a physical expression of one’s place in the world and the universe. Over time, the Zuni world has been remapped, with names changed, boundaries drawn, and cultural presence erased. The Zuni World exhibit challenges these assumptions through 31 artistic representations of Zuni maps and places in the Southwest.
This exhibit, on loan from the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center, is a Pueblo of Zuni Tribal museum dedicated to serving the Zuni community with programs and exhibitions to provide learning experiences emphasizing A:shiwi ways of knowing, as well as exploring modern concepts of knowledge.
When Rez Rogs Howl
The exhibit When Rez Dogs Howl is a visual narrative based on personal experience as a contemporary O’odham artist. The works start with select O’odham Creation Stories. The exhibit then leads into the connection and influence from the past, present and future. The more personal works in the second half of the exhibit are the artist’s recent experience with loss and grief, and how it relates to the overall general experience in these communities. Finally, the exhibit narrative comes full circle with pieces rooted in hope.
Seeing the Invisible: Landscape Archaeology in Phoenix
Landscape archaeology studies the relationship between people and places through time. Places are constantly changing, just like people. In this exhibit, learn about the non-destructive technologies that archaeologists use to show how a landscape has changed over time. The exhibit presents a case study of work done by Dr. Emily Fioccoprile, Dr. Matt Peeples, and colleagues at Arizona State University's Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve in north Phoenix. Support for this exhibit was provided by the Friends of Pueblo Grande Museum and the Center for Archaeology and Society in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.
Rights and Resilience: Celebrating Native American Women
Rights and Resilience: Celebrating Native American Women is an exhibition devoted solely to Native American women who fight for their people, their place and their heritage. They are leaders in government, protectors of environmental and human rights, keepers of tradition, innovators and changemakers, entrepreneurs, scientists, advocates and educators. Despite warfare, cultural assimilation and persecution, these resilient women inspire fresh perspectives and thoughtful conversations, and embody continuity.
Centered around themes of adaptability, perseverance, and transformation, the exhibit features ethnographic objects and several powerful artworks from contemporary artists.
