Major change at Cherokee museum

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian has chosen today, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, to announce “some major changes,” including a change in its name, construction of a new collections facility, and renovations to its current public facility in Cherokee’s Cultural District.

The new name is the Museum of the Cherokee People.

“The name and visual brand will change to reflect efforts to become a true resource and place of pride for citizens of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and its sister nations, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians,” said museum Executive Director Shana Bushyhead Condill.

Changes were spurred as “the board was asking for changes to the 25-year-old exhibit,” she said.

The news was shared last week with the tribal community.

“With the name change and brand update comes an entirely new website with updated resources for both the community and visitors,” Condill said in a press release.

“This new museum — this new direction, this new identity — looks quite different than the one WNC and Smokies-country residents may remember growing up and visiting Cherokee on field trips and weekends,” she said. “When we welcome locals among the 83,000 who step into the museum each year, they tell us that, residing on Cherokee ancestral homelands, they’re hungry for authentic history, culture, and art, and eager to understand the sovereign tribe as it is today.”

In an interview with SML, Condill said the museum has many objects in its collection that have been stored and unseen. “The issue is, their journeys have been disrupted.”

Changes include “making a home for these collections, not just putting them into storage. We believe that our collections are living; that every maker puts a part of themselves in their work,” she said.

“We have to consider, what do we do now? We do our best. The work that we do, we’re so lucky to have the work that’s been done before us, but we’re not doing it for us; we’re working for seven generations beyond us,” she said.

“We want to be a hub of Cherokee knowledge. We want to be that resource and facility for Cherokee scholarship.”

The museum opened in 1948 and moved to its present facility in 1976. Its exhibit was totally renovated in 1998, when a new 12,000-square-foot exhibit was installed. A new education wing of 8,500 square feet was added in 2010.

Condill, a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, has worked in the museum and cultural field for over 20 years. In Cherokee she is advancing a career-spanning commitment 'to cultivating Native representation and self-representation in public spaces, advocating for the intentional combining of mainstream best practices with Native best practices in cultural preservation.”

While at the National Trust for Historic Preservation she managed financials, contractors, and human resources of a combined 126-acre site that includes the home of a descendant of George Washington and a Frank Lloyd Wright house. Before her appointment at Cherokee she worked in the Communications and Content Strategy, Publishing, and Branding departments of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.