The Field Museum renovated its Native North America room and radically changed its orientation. The new approach emphasizes storytelling and contemporary art, as well as historical elements of the collection. The exhibition space is titled “Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories”.

TRANSCRIPTION

Marc Vitali: There is a new emphasis on earth, contemporary art and storytelling.

The new Native North America room has a very different vibe to the old, outdated room. It might make you look – and think – twice.

Brian ValloAdvisor: I’m from Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico.

I am a member of the advisory committee. I have been [on] since the beginning of this project, and it has been quite a humbling experience to work with the other advisers and museum staff.

Wali of AlakaField Museum: We started reaching out to different artists and communities, so ultimately we worked with over 150 community members from across the country and across Canada.

Our role was basically to facilitate the telling of the story, to help them select items from our collection or to talk about what a visitor might feel. It was a dialogue between us, but it is really their stories that you will hear.

Vallo: We consider each of these objects as living objects, they are created through prayer and song and rooted in a deep family and community history and culture.

It was very important for us to tell our own stories in our own voices, not only the counselors, but also to engage other of our Native American brothers and sisters in this process.

(Credit: Jay Young)

Vitali: The exhibition is permanent, with a section devoted to the native community of Chicago.

But some galleries will rotate, giving way to the depth of experiences and creativity of Indigenous peoples.

This is all meant to fix the original exhibit, which opened in the 1950s.

Wali: At that time, conservationists and anthropologists had this perspective that because of all the trauma that Indigenous peoples had gone through – and they were confined to these reservations – that the assumption on the part of anthropologists was that “oh, their cultures will disappear”, and so it is better to accumulate all the material culture that we can to “preserve” this way of life and showcase it in our museum.

And it was really a lack of understanding of the strength and resilience of Indigenous peoples and that they weren’t going away. They resisted from the start.

Vallo: That’s one of the important outcomes of all of this, is letting America and the world know that Indigenous people, indigenous people, are still here. You are in native land. We are on Native American land. We are on the land of the Creator. It’s a beautiful place and it’s sacred to us.

There is still work to be done and I hope the museum will continue to work with indigenous communities to develop more programs and more opportunities for engagement, allowing and providing access to tribal communities so they can see the collections and that they can repatriate the objects which must return to our respective tribal communities.

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“Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories” just opened at the Field Museum.

Members and donors can join an after-hours tour celebrating the new permanent exhibit on May 25 from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. CDT.