as a museum dedicated entirely to native american art, this place really made their experiences, culture, and struggle palpable. it does a great job blending authentic indian artifacts, like hand woven baskets and jewelry, with contemporary indian art clearly influenced by modern american styles, traversing the complicated, often contradictory relationships between assimilation and tradition.\n\nparticular pieces that directly depicted or confronted the deep tragedies caused by forced american assimilation were the ones that struck me the most. there were positive pieces as well that don't speak toward such loss, refusing to allow a sense of victimization. \n\nbut behind everything you could taste blood, especially the current boarding school exhibit that vividly recreates, through firsthand accounts, the experience of indian children being kidnapped from their homes and sent away for years to destitute boarding schools to become \"civilized.\" \n\nyou walk through different boarding school themed rooms; a dormitory, a classroom, a barber's chair where their long hair was shaved, replete with chopped braids all over the floor, etc. it's eerie as hell, and the whole while black and white photos of the children, most dead, stare at you in desperation. it feels like a haunted house only you know the unsettling emotion is not sourced in superstition. \n\nalas, it's depressing as hell but beneath it all is that undying optimism and story of survival. in the end, it's about how much we lost, as a nation, in our bloodthirsty conquest that could've learned so much from these people. you leave with a sense of empathy, tolerance, outrage, and remorse.
places reviews