Okay, actually I'm going to yell about this online on behalf of my cousins: our museum is a fucking clown show right now.
The Museum of the Cherokee People (formerly Museum of the Cherokee Indian) is a privately-run organization indirectly managed by the tribe in accordance with a charter.
It'd be nice if we just ran our museum instead of having it be run indirectly with an oversight committee consisting of five elders, all of whom have beeves with the other four.
The charter empowers the museum to use tribal artifacts and other resources to produce exhibits that are meant to educate both members of the tribe and tourists about the history and traditional culture of the Cherokee people for the purposes of cultural preservation.
All of this is news to the museum's head, a White woman without any background in Native history or culture who was hired against Tribal policy, who instead believes that the museum should be an art gallery for modern Cherokee artists, ignoring that already exists across the street in the co-op.
The museum's historical exhibits were last updated before fucking 9/11. We still have a video illustrating one of our myths (the invention of pottery to capture fire) with god-awful 90's CG graphics. The whole place is moldy and busted-looking as fuck.
It looks *so* bad, in fact, that they've closed down the vast majority of the actual museum "for renovation" (out of shame), with no planned re-opening. Oh, but you can come and see modern pottery, some of which were even made by Cherokee people!
But the worst part- the *very* worst part- is the goddamn fucking sign.
Here's the old sign- it's simple and direct. You might bitch about red-and-gold being very stereotypical colors to associate with Natives, but it's inoffensive and it has Grandmother Spider (an important deity) on it.
Here's the new sign, that was briefly up before the Tribal Council ordered it taken down as an eyesore. Most people won't understand why this sign is bad so I will explain it:
-We are crossing out the eyes of Grandmother Spider like she's fucking *dead*? Really? It's insulting.
-That mask should not be on a billboard for our people. It shouldn't be on display outside at all. That is a *sgili* mask, or "booger mask" if you use the common translation. It symbolizes an evil spirit that spreads disease and conflict, and is worn one day a year in an apotropaic ritual.
(In the ritual, the *sgili*, played by dancers, are invited to symbolically feast with us, where they dance drunkenly and lasciviously, and then depart, taking their evil influences with them.)
Putting it on a sign is asking for touble.
I don't know if this is happening to you too, but on web nothing else can be shown below this post. It just says "Continue this thread..." and jumps up to the top when you click it.
By the by, here's the mock-up of the sign they did, which... it shouldn't have the *sgili* mask, but it'd have been a lot better! It even has the sign written in syllabary, which is always good!
But you'll notice the sign that *is* only has a passing resemblance to the sign that was approved, which can mean one of two things:
1) Shana Bushyhead was so incompetent that she didn't understand that approvals are pretty strict.
2) This version of the sign was a Trojan horse.
That feels (especially the whole spraypaint bit) like something you'd slap up to highlight the transition, not as a permanent thing.
Are the colours particularly significant?
Also, the proposal said nothing about the sign being temporary, it was meant to be a permanent change.
More importantly, the Museum was created to record our history for educational purposes and Shana wants to throw all of that in the bin because something something disruption.
Caught that re: the permanence. Just looks like the thing you'd put up over the real new sign for a month or so.
And I loathe "disruptive" museum mgmt. It's not performance art for the director/curator/board!
Now that part of the design I don't object to. It's trying to convey the name-change, right? Like, it's spray-painting "people" over "Indian". I think it's supposed to be a challenge to the othering nature of the term "Indian".
That's what every traditional person said to Luke Swimmer's stupid fucking design, but no, it's "hip" and "urban" and "rebellious", so up it went until the Tribal Council made them take it down. And now Shana and Luke are crying censorship.
Sorry we aren't going to let you put what's basically an inverted cross and drawing of Satan on our museum sign, Luke, but we have cultural respect here!
Oh, it's something alright. Always love it when someone decides "Oh yeah, let's make it look like the sign was vandalized!"
Which, by the way, is what most of the people on that street thought happened! They called into the museum and tribal police about it!
Yeah, it's aesthetically unpleasing even once you set aside what it *means*.
Now, if you're traditional and know conjuring you might hang *sgili* masks facing the front door to drive away disease, but outside in view of everyone?
I understand what they're trying to do with the sprayed "people" but combined with the evil mask and the disrespect to the deity it's a whole mess, wow
It's just... Luke Swimmer, who made it, is someone who is not very in-touch with being Cherokee. He doesn't really respect traditional ways of thinking, which is fine for his private art! I'm not going to say he's Being Native Wrong! But don't do this shit for a museum!
Like you said elsewhere the sprayover works, but making it the same color as the weirder bits is a lot
Also im old fashioned and think museums should be a bit stodgy, given their function
I mean, even if it was an art museum, it would be closer to, say, the West Building of the National Gallery of Art than the East Building or the Hirshorn.
Though I agree from what you’ve described and what I can read even that’s not its remit.
