At AIC’s 2025 Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, Pejuta Haka Win Red Eagle joined the Sustainability Committee on a luncheon panel about mindful collecting in the time of climate change. She returns now to speak with Roxy about her perspectives on the preservation of Native American cultural heritage and the value community partnerships can have on collections care.
She highlights how native-led provenance models can positively impact collections care and better inform stewarding institutions in identifying and exhibiting the cultural heritage accurately. It is better to ask the community members than to exhibit materials with minimal understanding because misinterpretation can lead to misinformation. Humility in recognizing that we don’t know everything about the material and reaching out for help leads to more accurate information. The communities are gifting their knowledge and it can lead the field towards a more holistic approach to collections care.
Roxy and Pejuta talk about how the paradigms of ownership and stewardship differ in practice and what museums can do to shift towards a stewardship model that openly includes communities of origin. For many communities there is a deeply emotional aspect to their relationships and being trauma-informed and compassionate are ways in which conservators can engage with respect for the material heritage from communities outside their own.
Resources:
Luncheon Post-print for Luncheon forthcoming
Federally-Recognized American Indian Tribes and Alaska Native entities
