The Native Voices exhibition at the Natural History Museum of Utah, a permanent installation funded with an NEH grant. Image courtesy of the Natural History Museum of Utah.
The Natural History Museum of Utah welcomes between 260,000 and 270,000 visitors each year. With exhibitions focused on the sky, the land, the web of life, dinosaurs, prehistoric peoples, and contemporary indigenous peoples. In addition to helping the museum preserve its ethnographic collection, NEH funding helped the museum develop humanities exhibitions that rank among its most popular. This includes Native Voices, a permanent exhibition devoted to Utah’s Native American tribes which was opened as permanent installation in 2011.
“When American Indians visit the gallery you almost always hear stories: ‘Oh, I know that person,’ ‘that’s my cousin,’ or ‘let’s ask grandma to tell us more about this.’”
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Visitors explore the Native Voices exhibition. Native Voices grew out of the museum’s desire to display its ethnographic collections and its need to accurately represent Utah’s native peoples and their histories. Image courtesy of the Natural History Museum of Utah.
Native Voices grew out of the museum’s desire to display its ethnographic collections and its need to accurately represent Utah’s native peoples and their histories. Developed in consultation with the museum’s Indian Advisory Committee and external humanities scholars, the exhibition explores Native American history and contemporary experience with special attention to the impact of federal policies on the people of Utah over time. It privileges Native American perspectives and includes personal accounts of tribal leaders and community representatives. NEH funding allowed the museum to develop some of the exhibition’s most spectacular elements, including audio pieces that tell Native American stories in their original languages and in English; an interactive installation that teaches native languages; and a five-screen film that received a Gold Muse Award in Video, Film, and Computer Animation from the American Alliance of Museums. The museum regularly hosts public programs that feature Native American music, dance, and traditional games, and it has developed a K-12 teacher toolkit as a supplement to the installation.
Children engage with interactive components of the Native Voices exhibition. Image courtesy of the Natural History Museum of Utah.
Guests view an exhibit in Native Voices. Image courtesy of the Natural History Museum of Utah.
About 225,000 people visit Native Voices each year, including the state’s Native American people, whose attendance at the museum has risen since the exhibition opened. Reflecting on this, Becky Menlove, Associate Director for Visitor Experience, said that “the exhibition tells stories in the first person. There are lots and lots of direct quotes from [Native American] community members from around the state and there are photographs of individuals in these communities. When American Indians visit the gallery you almost always hear stories: ‘Oh, I know that person,’ ‘that’s my cousin,’ or ‘let’s ask grandma to tell us more about this.’”
