My last couple posts I have mentioned that something cool was happening last week, here's the scoop. For the last three summers the museum has hosted an event called Lakota Arts + Identities. It is a three day workshop/conference/seminar that is a cooperation between the museum and an organization called Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies AKA CAIRNS. CAIRNS is a group dedicated to both scholarly and social study of American Indian culture, as well as an educational support for teachers. It is made up of both Indian and non-Indian anthropologists, historians and educators. The purpose of the workshop is to help educators, scholars and museum folks learn how to interpret, use and exhibit Lakota art and artifacts in a respectful and accurate manner. for those that don't know, Lakota is the correct term to use when referring to the people often referred to as the Sioux. Well known Lakotas include; Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and Black Elk. One of our presenters/instructors was Dr Craig Howe, an Oglala Lakota. The other was Dr Harvey Markowitz, a non-Lakota who lived and studied on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. Some of the topics we covered were: Indians in movies, the lack of even general knowledge in South Dakota of the Lakota people, despite the fact that 20% of the land in SD is reservation land, as well as issues involved in museum's display of Indian items. For an idea of how limited the knowledge of the Lakotas is; Samantha, my fellow intern and history major , and I collaborated on an assessment or quiz on the subject and we scored 25%. We also learned some Lakota words and phrases, I really struggled.
Our main activity was getting to design, bulid and present an exhibit on a specific aspect of Lakota identity using objects from the museum's large collection of Lakota art and artifacts. This was where being a museum insider was fun. Sam, my boss Lisa and I pulled the items from storage and laid them out on long tables in our multipurpose room on Monday, the day before it got started and for the duration of the workshop we were the only ones allowed to touch any of them, with gloves of course. So whenever one of the four teams that we were divided into wanted to move anything they had to call one of us. Of course this was a bit of an advantage to the teams Sam and I were on. My team's assignment was an exhibit reflecting the idea of the Lakotas having a specific place within the physical space of their homeland. We tried to show how the Lakotas view of their place has evolved since being confined to reservations as well some of the constants of their sense of identity through sacred items, mainly the pipe. We used old photos, an old arrow, a farming tool, religious items, modern Lakota art and a pipe. We did a fifteen minute presentation to the group and though we weren't graded or judged, I feel we did very well.
It was an amazing experience that I am still thinking about. It was kind of a big deal to have the opportunity to attend and facilitate the workshop. We had people from all over the US and a Canadian Australian guy as well.I wanted to go last year but it is pretty expensive, it was free for me this year. It was my first time creating and curating an exhibit and I really loved it. It was also pretty cool to be an "insider"
 |
| My team's exhibit |
 |
| A piece of modern art in our exhibit and a paragraph about our exhibit that I wrote. |
 |
| A photo from 1930 of a Lakota family and their cabin, a hymn book with a beaded cover, a broken down old hoe. |
 |
| A beautiful pipe and pipestem as well as two Lakota depictions of their homeland. |
No comments:
Post a Comment