Description
The McClung Museum of Natural History & Culture (MCM) at the University of Tennessee (UT) was founded in part as a repository for millions of archaeological objects exposed in excavations conducted in the 1930s by UT in partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority. The holdings also include objects from the Native American Mound on the UT campus, created circa 600-1000 CE for ritual or burial purposes. In the most recent iteration of its relevant collection galleries (2001), a selection of those objects as well as other Native American collection objects have been on view in a long-term installation titled Archaeology and the Native Peoples of Tennessee. In response to MCM’s most recent NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) consultations with representatives of seven Tribes to which the objects are connected, MCM will remove one-quarter of the objects on view. (It should be noted that UT is engaged in more extensive efforts to respond to claims for the return of thousands of ancestral remains.)
MCM is taking this opportunity to collaborate with the same Tribal constituencies to replace the entire installation with a two-year exhibition titled “A Sense of Indigenous Place: Native American Voices and the Mound at University of Tennessee, Knoxville.” With Native partners, the MCM will interpret the mound at UT from Indigenous perspectives, asking who “owns” places, who can and should tell their stories, and how mounds continue to inform contemporary Indigenous culture and art. The exhibition’s content, including object selection, exhibition design, and didactic texts, will be developed with Tribal liaisons from the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, Cherokee Nation, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, and Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma. In addition to works from the permanent collection, the exhibition will include works by contemporary artists from the Tribes affiliated with the project. MCM anticipates that the Tribal collaborations developed through this project will inform future iterations and transformations of this primary gallery space.
Collateral features of the project will include: installation of an interpretive panel exhibit at the UT Mound; didactics at UT’s Research Park on the archaeology resources on that campus; a website addressing the mound at UT with perspectives from exhibition curators, collaborators, and Tribal community members; lesson plans and educational programming for K-12 and university students.
Luce funds would support all aspects of the project, from exhibition design and implementation to honoraria for Tribal consultants, website creation, and educational programs.