NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

In June I spent two months in Hawai'i as part of a fellowship I received this year, and while I have missed home and missed my family so much, what an amazing and productive time it was. Gof gaibåli.    Part of the Te Raingi Hirao Curators and Caretakers Fellowship that I was honored to receive from the Mellon Foundation and the Bishop Museum, supports the continued repatriation/rematriation of the 10,000+ Chamoru artifacts that have been in Bishop Museum's collection for more than a century. For the past week and a half, myself, Nicole Delisle Duenas from the Guam Cultural Repository and other fellows from the program have been working with those very artifacts, preparing them so that they can make the journey home later this year.    This massive collection of artifacts from across the Marianas, known as the Hornbostel Collection, was deaccessioned by the Bishop Museum last year. Due to its size though, it was decided to return it in phases or to use an appropriate...

Since I began working at the Guam Museum, repatriation of human remains, of artifacts, or cultural materials, has gone from being something that was just on a list of things that indigenous people struggle with in general, to something that is literally part of my job description.  For those unfamiliar with the term, since it can be used in different contexts, repatriation as I'm thinking of it here means the return of cultural properties, ancestral remains to their countries, their peoples, usually from museums, universities or other institutions. As the curation for the Guam Museum, part of what I do deal with seeking possibilities for repatriation of Chamoru artifacts and ancestral remains. Whether they have been taken away a few years ago or decades ago for research or some other reason.  (Rematriation is something I'll have to get into on another post. Less discussed, but critically important as we see the returning of artifacts, as less the end of a process, but an impor...

In 2022 while attending the first ever Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Museum Institute (NHPIMI) in Hawai'i, I began to write a series of columns for the Pacific Daily News that covered some of the 90 year history of the Guam Museum.   In recent decades the Guam Museum has a fairly complicated history, where at times for years there was no actual museum, just a collection moving from storage space to storage space. Even at times when there has been a physical, dedicated facility for the museum, sometimes there has been insufficient staff or resources. Even legally where the museum falls within the Government of Guam as an agency has changed over the past forty years.  For these complicating factors, the columns focused on the museum's history from the 1930s to the 1970s.  ******************* “Can a Museum Being a Living Institution?” July 21, 2022   I am spending the month of July at the East-West Center as part of the historic first cohort for the Native...

For the entire month of July, I'll be in Hawai'i at the East West Center for the first ever Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Museum Institute. This is an incredible opportunity for me to work with museum professionals and scholars from across the Pacific and network with people from museums, galleries, arts councils and cultural centers from a dozen different island communities.We just finished the first week and it has already been amazing on so many levels. I'm sure I'll be writing more about my experiences over the course of the month Here is the full list of all of those who are attending.  Roldy Ablao, Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum, California Archie Ajoste, Northern Mariana Islands Museum, Saipan Pamela Alconcel, Lānaʻi Heritage Center, Hawaiʻi Wilbert Alik, RMI Ministry of Culture and Internal Affairs, Marshall Islands Meked Besebes, Internal Affairs, Palau Michael Lujan Bevacqua, Guam Museum, Guam Mina Elison, Donkey Mill Arts Center, Hawaiʻi Ailini Eteuati, ...