Description
The Shelburne Museum (SM) was established in 1947 by Electra Havemeyer Webb and today functions as both the largest art and history museum in northern New England and Vermont’s foremost cultural resource. SM holds a collection of more than 100,000 objects of art and Americana, as well as thirty-nine historical buildings across its campus. SM seeks to fund a term position for a curator of its Native American holdings, which are to be the focus of a major study, outreach, and installation project culminating in the construction of a new facility for the preservation, sharing and exhibition of works of Indigenous art and material culture. The Native American holdings number about 600 objects, evenly divided between acquisitions from the mid-1950s (which have been off view for two decades) and works included in a recent gift of national importance.Â
SM’s plans for stewardship of the collection have been informed by extended consultations with an NEA-funded national advisory group which has prioritized connections to the living, community contexts for objects in the collection and the necessary cultural care specific to them. To lead the project forward, SM will seek a term curator with deep expertise, and preferably from a Native community, for the initial three-year term position. SM leadership intends to endow the position as a permanent post through a major capital campaign now underway. The campaign additionally will offer holistic support for SM’s Native American Initiative, with funding for conservation, construction, galleries, and programming.Â
The term curator will be charged with establishing lines of communication and engagement with representatives of thirty tribes nationally and with more local communities. This will include providing access to collection objects for study and consideration, re-cataloguing collection objects in collaboration with Native representatives, and establishing ethical protocols for collection housing, care, and presentation. The curator will also collaborate with Native experts to conceptualize the installation of the collection, exhibitions, and educational programming. They will additionally contribute to the design of the new facility by determining the spaces necessary for Tribal contact with and study of collection objects. SM intends the work of its first curator of the Native American collections to establish a model for shared stewardship that generates and promotes an authentic representation of Native American individuals, communities, art, and histories.Â