The Art of Native Life: Exhibiting Culture and Identity at the National Museum of the American Indian

Abstract

Within its short history as an institution and as a site of multilayered display and examination, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) has presented critical opportunities for the consideration of Native American art and material culture. Because NMAI is located at an important intersection between its audience of Native and non-Native individuals; its responsibility to Native communities and Native history; and its place within the Smithsonian Institution, it must strive toward complex, multifaceted goals and acknowledge Native and non-Native interests. To demonstrate these complexities, I examine one of NMAI’s recent exhibit projects, Listening to Our Ancestors: The Art of Native Life along the North Pacific Coast, in an effort to tease out the aesthetic and cultural composition of Native objects as perceived and promoted by Native and non-Native museum staff and Native community consultants. I review the operating philosophy and mission of NMAI and follow with a discussion of the object selection and presentation involved in Listening to Our Ancestors, an exhibit of which I was a museumbased cocurator and on which I have an intimate working perspective. I aim to add to our understanding of the different approaches to visualizing and displaying culture through this firsthand account of exhibit development and display at NMAI.