50 Museum Directors Sign Letter Supporting Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
Last edited Wed Sep 21, 2016, 04:10 PM - Edit history (1)
50 Museum Directors Sign Letter Supporting Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
Ben Davis, September 21, 2016
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s historic battle to stop the Dakota Access pipeline has attracted international attention, galvanizing public discussion about environmental justice and Native American rights. Earlier this month, after the company in charge of the pipeline callously destroyed newly discovered burial grounds and ancient sites that stood in its path, I wrote that the standoff was “a fight about whose culture matters.”
[font size="4"color="navy"]Today, some 50 museum directors from across the country—and more than 1,000 archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and museum workers of all kinds—have signed an open letter with a message of solidarity.[/font]
“We stand with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and affirm their treaty rights, tribal sovereignty, and the protection of their lands, waters, cultural and sacred sites,” it reads, in part, “and we stand with all those attempting to prevent further irreparable losses.”
Among the notable figures whose names are in the letter:
—Richard Lariviere, president and CEO of the Field Museum in Chicago
—Brenda Toineeta Pipestem, chair of the board of trustees of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
—Suzan Shown Harjo, a 2014 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work preserving Native American culture
—Anne Pasternak, the director of the Brooklyn Museum
—Laura Raicovich, director of the Queens Museum
The letter was initiated by the Natural History Museum, a project of the New York-based art collective Not An Alternative, which has sought to politicize science and natural history museums around issues of climate change.
Beka Economopoulos, a member of Not An Alternative, said that the letter took on a life of its own almost from the moment it was posted to the Facebook page of the Natural History Museum.
“From there it quickly snowballed—hundreds of signatures in the first 24 hours,” Economopoulos wrote. “There were 40-plus signatures in the Google doc at a time, sometimes several signatures a minute.”
Support from cultural leaders continues to build. Those interested in adding their voices can write to info[at]thenaturalhistorymuseum.org.
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https://news.artnet.com/art-world/museum-directors-support-standing-rock-662780
<<==*==>>Full List of Names<<==*==>>
http://thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/archaeologists-and-museums-respond-to-destruction-of-standing-rock-sioux-burial-grounds/
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