Some of the staff of the Museum of the Cherokee People are shown in the main exhibit, which is undergoing an update at the moment and is scheduled to re-open in March. Shown, left to right, are Evan Mathis, Museum director of collections and exhibitions; Michael Slee, Museum director of operations; Dakota Brown, Museum director of education; Shana Bushyhead Condill, Museum executive director; and Eden Brown, Museum director of finance. (SCOTT MCKIE B.P./One Feather photos)
By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
CHEROKEE, N.C. – Visitors walking into the Museum of the Cherokee People these days will see much work being accomplished on the lobby area and beyond. Museum staff is currently working diligently to update the main exhibit which is scheduled to re-open in March.
“The overarching theme for this one is a shift into being a true Cherokee first-voice museum,” said Shana Bushyhead Condill, Museum executive director. “We walked through the exhibit yesterday for the millionth time and seeing how often the word ‘they’ is in the label versus ‘our’ or ‘we’ is really interesting. Just to think about going through the whole thing and changing the perspective. We’ve been saying that and now we can have the pen in our own hand. What does that actually look like. So, that, I think, is exciting for us.”
The logo of the Museum of the Cherokee People is in the process of being painted behind the register in the lobby by its designer, Tyra Maney.
Sustainability for the Museum is one of the four strategic priorities along with communications, identity, and community buy-in. “We had to shut down the exhibit for a minute and that was a cost to us. We discounted admission. We have an unusual business model where 80 percent of our income comes from box office. That’s not typical for any museum I’ve ever worked at before. Usually you have a more diverse stream of funding. So, as we think about what could those streams of funding be, can we do it in this space? These are the questions that we’re asking.”
Revenue is important to any business, but the Museum is also dedicated to serving the people. “We of course always want to be of our community,” said Condill. “What’s the point if we’re not serving our community.”
She added, “What we’re able to do right now is use our current space as lab space…’Sovereignty’ is an experiment. That’s one of those themes that we’re talking about. Instead of saying, ‘In the beginning was the Paleo Period’, we’re going to talk about sovereignty. What does that look like through time and for us? Maybe we’re addressing various, different times within that theme.”
Cost for the transformative updates will be minimal as the work is being done in-house.
Dakota Brown, Museum director of education, said the Museum is dedicated to using a Cherokee voice in everything going forward. “One of the things that, as far as challenges are concerned, I think that any kind of change is sometimes scary for folks. So, I think that’s one of the challenges that we’ve seen is that there’s not a model, really, that exists in this area or even in the museum world. It’s very uncommon to see a first-voice museum. There’s a few examples that we’ve been able to pull from. FAM (First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City) is one of those examples and then IAAM (International African American Museum in Charleston) is another example of a first-voice museum. So, there is a little bit of trial and error when it comes to this. We do have to be a little fearless when it comes to the way that we approach things. We have to kind of test them out to see if it’s going to work. And, we also have to be willing to pivot and know when to pull back when things aren’t working.”
She went on to say, “For the most part, we’ve seen a great response to the way that we’ve approached that. Most people, I think, can resonate with authenticity and being in authentic spaces. So, when they come into our spaces and see that authentic representation, we’ve gotten good feedback from folks about that.”
Evan Mathis, Museum director of collections and exhibits, noted, “Our current ‘Sovereignty’ exhibit is not super kid-friendly. We want to make sure that we bring every age group. We want every age group to be able to enjoy the gallery spaces so that was a lesson for us. Kids don’t really care about a super academic exhibit about sovereignty so that’s a goal for us as well.
The front entrance of the Museum has been repainted to match its updated branding.
All of our exhibits going forward will be culturally safe for our community to go through. There won’t be any funerary or sacred objects on view and people will have the opportunity to consent to viewing those things if they come here to view those things in the object collections.”
He spoke of one exciting addition to the new space. “We’re also, for the first time in the old exhibit, acknowledging who the makers of the objects are and making sure that they’re acknowledged in the exhibit. Before when you walked through, there was no names of the makers listed…unfortunately, that information, a lot of it has been lost. They have really poor records. We don’t know where some of the materials came from. But, if we have the information, we’re going to list it.”
Michael Slee, Museum director of operations, also spoke about the voice of the Museum. “I think it’s important to remember that as we tell these stories about Cherokee history that it’s important that it’s coming from Cherokee people. Because we’re not just talking about people in the past. We’re literally talking about our own grandparents and our communities. This history that we’re talking about is my grandma. So, just being conscious of that with everything that we do and sensitive to it.”
Brown said they want the updated exhibit to be a place all ages can enjoy. “We’re hoping to target a 4th-5th grade level throughout the exhibit. That way we can have our area schools come and see the exhibit and our kids have something to do when they come here. What we’re hoping to do is show that contrast of, ‘this is where we’re headed, this is where we’ve been’ and show clear examples of, ‘what could be wrong with this? Or why might we say ‘we’ and ‘our’ instead of ‘they’?’ So, we’re hoping to show those contrasts in the interpretation of how far we’ve come and what being a first-voice museum looks like.”
She said the goal is to have visitors interact with the exhibits mentally. “We’re hoping that we’re going to get our visitors to ask questions and question what they’re seeing. That’s kind of the hope of our approach is that folks will be able to question what they’re seeing and be thoughtful about what they’re seeing. One of the responsibilities that we have as a museum is that folks come in our door and what’s on the wall they take as absolute truth. So, what we want to do is challenge our visitors to think critically about what they’re seeing and how they’re walking through the space.”
Showing that Cherokee people are not just historical beings is very important to Condill and the entire staff. She noted, “It’s heartbreaking to me and I hate it, but when I was deciding to go into museums in 1998, I remember writing about the struggle for acknowledgement – to not be invisible. That we are still here is something that I was writing about back then and, unfortunately, it’s still relevant today. We ask our young people what they want us to say, and that’s what they say. We want people to know that we’re still here. So that piece of being contemporary Native people who are alive and thriving today has to be a piece of every single thing we do, in every exhibit we do, ever.”
She said the new, updated exhibit will just build on a proud tradition the Museum has fulfilled since its inception. “Our museum here has always been innovative, always on the cutting edge of what museums can be…we’re still on that cutting edge. We’re still building on the legacies of those that came before us here at the museum, but it’s an opportunity now to take that next step, which is exciting.”
For more information on the Museum of the Cherokee People, visit: https://motcp.org
