Museum of Cherokee celebrates new era

Jessica Webb

editor@thesmokymountaintimes.com

With a nod to the past, the Museum of the Cherokee People partied like it was 1998 this past Friday night, Dec. 29. The celebration, which was free to enrolled members and for a fee for others, marked the retirement of the current permanent exhibit that first opened in 1998 at the museum that is more than 75 years old.

To mark the occasion, there was food, dancing, a costume contest and tours of the exhibit. The highlight was the artist talks from those whose work was included in the 2023 exhibit Disruption. This exhibit helped fill spaces throughout the museum where funereal objects were discovered and removed from public view. The exhibit connected Cherokee identity and marked the new focus at the museum on self-representation. Also in 2023, the museum changed its name from the Museum of the Cherokee Indian.

John Henry Gloyne was among the artists who spoke on Friday night. His work has worldly influences that not until the birth of his son shifted to a greater focus on his own native cultural heritage.

“We’re all nurturing this culture, and we’re all kind of parents of it,” he said to the crowd who filled the main room of the exhibits to hear artists speak.

Executive Director Shana Bushyhead Condill started as director in May 2021, but she was an intern at the museum in 1998 when the exhibit first opened. She remembers it as exiting and state of the art when it opened, with mind-blowing holograms and other elements of then-modern technology.

“At that time there wasn’t much representative of native people anywhere,” Condill recalls. “I wasn’t seeing images of myself represented in TV, movies that wasn’t stereotypical. Fast forward 25 years, and I’ve been in museum this whole time, most recently at the National Gallery of Art in D.C.”

When she came on at the museum in Cherokee, the board recognized the exhibit was due for a renovation and one that is more in line with current scholarship. As they went through the current exhibit, they realized there were about 100 objects that were ceremonial and/or funereal objects that they removed from public view. That’s how Disruption came into being, to fill those spaces with art from contemporary Cherokee artists.

Reviewing the permanent exhibit, it follows a timeline starting in the Paleo era and moving up to about 1920. The layout, labyrinth-like and immersive with the low ceilings, also is out of date.

“It’s not how we think about ourselves; we started to realize we have to rethink all of it,” Condill said.

Along with Director of Education Dakota Brown, Condill started researching what storylines they want to convey and how to tie in things like the fact the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the museum itself sits in their ancestral homelands— a unique position few tribes can claim.

There’s an interest in having windows that look out into the mountains and the river because place is an important aspect of their cultural heritage.

“We’re of this place,” Condill said. “We’re really excited about rethinking the whole thing and how we tell native stories.”

Throughout 2023, the museum reached out through the community to begin conversations and shape how to tell their story.

Condill said they are also cognizant of how lucky they are to be located somewhere that sees so many visitors throughout the year. They also want to do more to connect with their native audience.

The stories they tell are also that of members of the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetowah Band, along with the Eastern Band of the Cherokee.

One of the efforts they have made recently is having more of an online presence to connect with those tribal members who don’t live here.

She said the coming change to the permanent exhibit it bittersweet.

“I’m excited to say goodbye to it, but it’s also kind of hard. It is time we know more and better and tell more of our story from our perspective. I’m excited more than anything. The community has been really supportive.”

The museum is currently closed for renovations and is set to reopen Saturday.