MUSEUM FOR CULTURAL EXCELLENCE: PATH TO RECONCILIATION

Project 1’s Introduction to Lorna Thomas Hill’s artefact led to understanding her use of Iroquois raised beadwork as a reclamation of a once fetishized artform. It then resulted in me designing a space that had people actively participate in it in order to avoid treating the container as a whimsical souvenir. This interaction would then lead to a space where people had to work to see the artefact, thus giving it time and learning about it beyond a superficial first look.

The Woodland Cultural Center’s museum of excellence proposal aimed to include this personal effort towards learning through time, community, and a call back to the fabric that led to increased or decreased visibility as a reference to increased learning. In order to create this move towards learning, I decided to create a journey through the history exhibit, that gradually created a more isolating experience, eventually leading to a moment of solitary release through the sculpture garden until returning to the contemporary exhibit, described as a space for gathering. The programming of these spaces was further driven by the Indigenous way of knowing with the entry through the eastern door. These spaces were further defined by referencing the use of the fabric in the previous project with the way the curves of the plan got tighter and looser across the plan dependent on the nature of the space and the desired experience. Throughout this journey, there was always a visual connection to the central space, through a sheer fabric whose decreasingly tight folds allowed for improved views into the space, as learning from the civilization exhibit increased, ultimately leading into this space and a moment of discussion.

The central space was further defined by the curtain fabric being extended across the plinths and benches to create a unified experience and remove the divide between the viewer and the artifact as a way to remove viewing it as a foreign object. The resultant space’s goal was then to move away from a sterile museum environment to one of gathering and conversation.