2016 NYCMER Annual Conference: Intersections

The Hall of Northwest Coast Indians is The American Museum of Natural History’s oldest hall— opening in year 1900. Although visitors were first welcomed more than 100 years ago, the hall remains as it first stood—preserving the revolutionary thinking of it’s curator Franz Boas, Father of American anthropology. For scholars, the hall is an artifact—and should be treated as such. For the visitor, the hall is dark, dusty, old. For the museum educator, it’s display and interpretation is outdated. AMNH reconciled these competing claims via impactful, on-site programming—intersecting the historical with the contemporary in “Artist in Residence: Haida Manga in the Museum” bringing the hall and it’s artifacts to life.