Indivisible

While browsing articles and online exhibitions, searching for something that I found particularly interesting and relevant to this class, I discovered this exhibit on the website for the National Museum of the American Indian. I believe this traveling exhibition, IndiVisible, is representative of things we’ve learned so far in the course.

The exhibition focuses on the struggle for people from both African American and Native American ancestry to integrate into American culture, while preserving aspects of their own. The information from various sources are organized into four themes (policy, community, creative resistance and lifeways) to make the exhibit not only digestible for the average American, but also thought provoking. This exhibition raises questions about national and individual identity, what it means to be American Indian and African American and ancestry in America.

I thought this exhibition relates to the material in our course because gives people whose convergent histories were previously invisible or undefined recognition, similar to the way the National Museum for the American Indian officially separated and recognized the distinct and different histories of the American Indian.

The National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture co-sponsored the exhibition in order to thoroughly paint an accurate picture of the dual histories. Like the community-curated installations at the National Museum for the American Indian, IndiVisible makes use of wall text, historical objects, audio features, contemporary art and historical documents.

http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/indivisible/introduction.html