Tribalpedia

Upcoming Fall Exhibits At The National Museum Of The American Indian

Jeffrey Veregge: Of Gods and Heroes

Fall 2018–October 13, 2019

New York, NY

Jeffrey Veregge, Mysterious Planet, 2017. Courtesy of Jeffrey Veregge.

This exhibition will feature a new narrative creation by the Salish artist known for his bold blend of Northwest Coast formline and pop-culture figures. This site-specific work will include an epic battle between Marvel characters and aliens invading the streets of New York City.

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Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound

November 10, 2017–January 6, 2019

New York, NY

Kevin McKenzie, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, 2015 (detail). Cast polyurethane, acrylic, neon. Collection of the artist. Photo by Joshua Voda, NMAI.

Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound presents the work of ten artists who use light, digital projection, and experimental media to reflect on their place in and between traditional and dominant cultures. Through innovative sound art, digital media, and installation, the exhibition demonstrates the continuity of Indigenous cultures and creativity in the digital age. The artists use nontraditional media and colorful and dynamic forms to draw viewers into a world of indigenous experience, insight, and invention that is at once ancient and adapted to the moment.

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Circle of Dance

October 6, 2012–April 2019

New York, NY

Northern Traditional Dancer, Terry Fiddler (Cheyenne River Sioux), National Museum of the American Indian National Powwow, 2007. Photograph by K. Fogden

Circle of Dance presents Native dance as a vibrant, meaningful, and diverse form of cultural expression. Featuring ten social and ceremonial dances from throughout the Americas, the exhibition illuminates the significance of each dance and highlights the unique characteristics of its movements and music.

Music and dance have always been essential to the spiritual, cultural, and social lives of Native peoples. Unique forms of ritual, ceremonial, and social dancing remain a vital part of contemporary community life. Everywhere dance is found, it is accompanied by distinctive Native musical styles. Rich music and dance traditions create strong ties that bind American Indian communities to all living things, to the earth, spirit world, and—when people have deep ancestral claims to their dances—to the past.

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Taíno Perseverance in next [July 28, 2018-October 2019]  NYC exhibit at National Museum of the American Indian

Taino Puerto Rican Indians in modern day.

“The Indigenous peoples of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean are not extinct and they never were. ‘Todavía estamos aquí (we are still here)’: this is the powerful message of the modern Taíno movement and the foundation of “Taíno: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean,” a new exhibition presented by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Smithsonian Latino Center. It opens Saturday, July 28, at the museum’s George Gustav Heye Center in New York.”

“The term Taíno most directly refers to the diverse Arawak-speaking peoples of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico) and their descendants.

Cubans reclaim their Taino Indian heritage. Smithsonian Magazine.

Though the Indigenous peoples’ numbers greatly dwindled upon contact with European colonizers, they survived disease, enslavement and brutality. Currently, a Native heritage movement involving Taíno descendants is growing throughout the Greater Antilles and in diasporic Caribbean communities in the United States, such as the region around New York City.

The Moxum family have mixed Native roots. Mr. Norman Moxum is of Arawak-descent, and his wife, Yolanda Moxum, comes from a Miskito community in Honduras. Photo Credit- John Homiak.

These diverse groups have established robust networks that continue the proud legacies of their Native ancestors, and “Taíno: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean” provides a framework for understanding the growth of this movement in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and the United States.”

The exhibition is presented in English and Spanish and will be open through October 2019.

“Taíno: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean” begins with an overview of Taíno cultures before European contact, where visitors encounter emblematic objects associated with aspects of Native political and spiritual life that would drastically change after European colonization. One particularly important series of objects identified in the exhibition are cemís. Considered living objects by Taíno peoples, cemís are stone, wooden or cotton artifacts used in ceremony to connect with deities, ancestors and forces of nature. In all, 31 objects from the museum’s collection serve as focal points for the exhibition, 19 of which date back to pre-contact (ca. A.D. 800–1500). The exhibition demonstrates how archaeological objects from the ancestral past inform and inspire the present-day Taíno movement.”

For more information, including associated events, visit The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian