BACKGROUND FACT SHEET NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN MISSION The National Museum of the American Indian is an institution of living cultures dedicated to the preservation, study and exhibition of the life, languages, literature, history and arts of the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The formal mission statement reads as follows: The National Museum of the American Indian shall recognize and affirm to Native communities and the non-Native public the historical and contemporary culture and cultural achievements of the Natives of the Western Hemisphere by advancing in consultation, collaboration and cooperation with Natives knowledge and understanding of native cultures, including art, history and language, and by recognizing the museum's special responsibility, through innovative public programming, research and collections, to protect, support and enhance the development, maintenance and perpetuation of Native culture and community. OPENING DATES Currently, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian has offices in Washington, D.C., and an exhibition facility, the George Gustav Heye Center, at One Bowling Green located in Lower Manhattan. The George Gustav Heye Center opened to the public on Oct. 30, 1994. 1997 (tentative) Cultural Resources Center opens in Suitland, Md. The center will house the museum's collections and activities such as research, conservation, exhibition support and community service programs. The Smithsonian has contracted with James Stewart Polshek and Partners of New York City; Metcalf Tobey & Partners of Reston, Va.; and the Native American Design Collaborative, headquartered in Albuquerque, N.M., to provide architectural and engineering services for the center. The selected team is now designing the center using information acquired during the consultation process conducted by the museum staff with the assistance of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc. of Philadelphia (see page 5). The Native American Design Collaborative is an association of 24 Native American-owned architectural and engineering firms and allied professionals from all over the United States, but located primarily in the West. 2001 (tentative) National Museum of the American Indian opens on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The museum will be built across the street from the National Air Space Museum and near the U.S. Capitol. The architectural firm of Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham of Philadelphia in association with Douglas Cardinal Architect Ltd. of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, has been selected to design the museum on the Mall. NEW YORK EXHIBITION FACILITY Opening to the public on Oct. 30, 1994, the museum's Heye Center occupys two floors of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in lower Manhattan. The Beaux Arts-style building, designed by architect Cass Gilbert, was completed in 1907. It is a designated National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark. The center's exhibition and public-access areas will total about 20,000 square feet. The total space is 82,000 square feet. Renovation of the Custom House was completed by Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut, and Whitelaw Architects of New York. The Heye Center will have three inaugural exhibitions as well as an orientation exhibit. The exhibitions are: "Creation's Journey: Masterworks of Native American Identity and Belief" features 165 objects from the permanent collection that were selected by the curatorial staff for their beauty, rarity and historical significance, as well as high artistic achievement and broad representation of diverse cultures. The objects with dates ranging from 3,200 B.C. to the present represent tribal groups from across the Western Hemisphere. "Creation's Journey" features works that have not been frequently exhibited or published. "All Roads Are Good: Native Voices on Life and Culture" represents the world view of the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere as reflected in 311 objects chosen by 23 Native Americans. The selectors included artists, museum directors, and arts and cultural leaders from North, Central and South America, representing such peoples as the Apache, Aymara, Cahuilla, Cherokee, Crow, Delaware, Kiowa, Lakota, Mohawk, Navajo, Ojibwe, Pomo, Seneca, Shuar, Taquile and Zapotec. "This Path We Travel: Celebrations of Contemporary Native American Creativity" is a collaborative exhibition featuring the collective and individual talents of 15 contemporary Native artists who have met at several locations over the past several years and experimented with the interrelationship between Native and contemporary, traditional and innovative. These artists have created an exhibition that combines various media including installation, sculpture, performance, poetry, music and video, designed to complement Creation's Journey and All Roads are Good and deepens public appreciation of the cultural achievement of living Native artists. COLLECTIONS The National Museum of the American Indian is home to the collection of the former Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. The collection is one of the finest and most comprehensive collections of Indian cultural materials in the world. The collection, which became part of the Smithsonian in June 1990, was assembled over a 54-year period, beginning in 1903, by George Gustav Heye (1874-1957), a New York banker who traveled throughout North and South America accumulating the collection. The Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian opened to the public in New York City in 1922. The collection has more than 1 million artifacts and includes photo archives of about 86,000 prints and negatives. Among the objects are fine wood, horn and stone carvings from the Northwest Coast of North America; Navajo weavings and blankets; archaeological objects from the Caribbean; textiles from Peru and Mexico; basketry from the Southwest; gold work from Colombia, Mexico and Peru; jade from the Olmec and Maya peoples; Aztec mosaics; and painted hides and garments from the North American Plains Indians. Approximately 70 percent of the collection comes from North America (about 67 percent from the United States and 3 percent from Canada), and about 30 percent is from Central and South America. COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT The bulk of the collection is currently housed in the museum's research annex in the Bronx. Repatriation is one aspect of collections management. The museum's repatriation policy, which was adopted by the Board of Trustees on March 4, 1991, calls for the return, upon request, of human remains, funerary objects, communally owned Native property, ceremonial and religious objects and objects transferred to or acquired by the museum illegally to Indian tribes or individuals with tribal or cultural affiliation. FUND RAISING The legislation that established the National Museum of the American Indian mandated that the Smithsonian Institution provide one-third of the construction cost of the museum's National Mall facility from non-federal funds. The remaining two-thirds will be provided as funds appropriated to the Smithsonian by the Congress for this purpose. The initially estimated total cost of construction is $106 million. A more precise figure cannot be determined until programming and design activities have been completed and the architects have produced working drawings. The current schedule calls for programming and design to be completed during fiscal year 1996 (which ends on Sept. 30, 1996). Therefore, the Smithsonian's one-third share must be raised before that time. The National Campaign for the National Museum of the American Indian has a planning goal of $60 million, which includes the Smithsonian's one-third share of the construction cost as well as support funds for the museum s outreach and educational programs. The National Campaign offers charter memberships for $20 each, which provides a number of benefits, among them a subscription to Native Peoples magazine; discounts in Smithsonian museum shops; advance notice of special events; and opportunities to join Smithsonian tours and attend informative seminars. To date, nearly 67,000 people have become members of the museum. The National Campaign also has assembled its 37-member Honorary Committee, national and international leaders who have agreed to lend their names and personal support to the National Museum of the American Indian fund-raising effort. Chaired by Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D-Colo.), the Honorary Committee includes President Bill Clinton and all living former U.S. presidents ( Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush), as well as Wilma Mankiller, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation; prima ballerina Maria Tallchief (Osage); actors Kevin Costner, Paul Newman and Robert Redford; Octavio Paz, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in literature; and golf pro Arnold Palmer. The campaign offices are located in Washington, D.C. The National Campaign director is John L. Colonghi (Eskimo/Aleut). Director W. Richard West Jr. (Southern Cheyenne) was named founding director of the museum in the spring of 1990. Douglas E. Evelyn is deputy director; Clara Sue Kidwell (Chippewa/Choctaw) is assistant director for cultural resources; and Donna Scott is assistant director for administration. AMERICAN INDIAN TRAINING PROGRAMS The Smithsonian's American Indian Museum Studies Program organizes courses, internships and residencies in museum practices for American Indians. Courses are held at the Smithsonian and at tribal facilities around the country. These courses focus on organization and management of tribal museums, archives and cultural facilities. Internships and residencies take place in Washington, D.C., and offer training in museum operations. Scholarships are available. The program is coordinated for the museum by the Smithsonian's Office of Museum Programs. BUDGET The renovation cost for the Heye Center in the Custom House was $24 million ($8 million each was provided by the federal government, New York City and New York state). The current estimate for the Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Md., is $50 million. The fiscal year 1994 federal appropriation for the museum's salaries and expenses was $11.4 million. CONSULTATIONS The museum staff is seeking the views of Indian communities throughout the hemisphere by conducting regional meetings or consultations. Since 1990, 22 consultation meetings have been held in the United States and Canada. A meeting to plan a Latin American consultation was held in July 1992 in Washington. Prior to selection of the architectural firms, Philadelphia-based Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc., developed general architectural program requirements for the new museum's Washington, D.C. facilities by attending the regional consultations with the various Indian communities. GOVERNANCE The museum is governed by a 25-member Board of Trustees, which meets four times a year. The chairman of the board is Norbert S. Hill Jr. (Oneida) of Boulder, Colo. Smithsonian Secretary I Michael Heyman and Tom L. Freudenheim, Smithsonian assistant secretary for the arts and humanities, are on the board as ex officio members. The legislation that established the museum Public Law 101-185 (Nov. 28, 1989) called for an initial Board of Trustees consisting of eight individuals appointed by the Smithsonian's Board of Regents and 15 individuals who had served on the Heye Foundation board. By law, at least seven of the 23 non-Smithsonian members of this initial board are to be American Indians. After the terms of the initial board members expire, the trustees are to be appointed by the Smithsonian Board of Regents from nominees recommended by the trustees. Twelve of the 23 members are to be American Indians. Twelve of the current members are American Indians. # # # # For press information contact: Lee Ann Fahey (212) 825-8199 or Dan Agent (202) 357-2627 For recorded information call: (212) 668-6624 This information was provided by the Resource Center: (212) 825-8118 .