5/21/09
This weekend, before visitors even enter the long-awaited New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe, they’ll see the contributions of norteños.
Artist Paula Castillo, of Cordova, was selected last September to create four exterior pieces for the new 96,000-square-foot Museum, which opens its doors to the public May 24 at noon.
Castillo said the three pieces which greet visitors and passersby on Lincoln Avenue are meant to offer a sense of place.
“I look at the setting of the history museum for the state of New Mexico as the environment,” Castillo said.
Therefore, she created three pieces called, “Dos Hermanas/Dos Arboles,” “Rio Grande Colcha” and “Barco y Sierra” to evoke the forests, water, sheep and mountains that have so influenced the cultural history of New Mexico.
Inside, the Museum’s core exhibit leads visitors through five chronological periods of New Mexico history, beginning with a curved wall where recordings of Navajo, Apache and Pueblo voices set the scene prior to Spanish contact. That leads immediately into a display on Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate, complete with a metal breastplate, sword and Bible.
Museum spokeswoman Kate Nelson said the primary exhibit focuses on the period in which cultures came into contact because that’s the story that can be told and expanded through the presentation of tangible artifacts from the state’s collection.
“We tell it from both points of view and don’t come to any conclusions on our own,” she said.
Museum Director Frances Levine said she is cautiously optimistic that the exhibits will not only bring in out-of-state visitors but also increase tourism among New Mexicans, who may learn something new about places such as Española, Ohkay Owingeh or the Camino Real and want to see the places for themselves.
Rooms in the main exhibit deal with the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the Chimayó Rebellion of 1837, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, federal Indian policy such as forced marches and government education, the coming of the railroad and more.
In the final room, which contains the stories of contemporary New Mexicans, visitors can access touch-screen catalogs of oral histories, including recordings of Dr. Bibiji Inderjit Kaur Khalsa, the chief religious minister for the Sikh Dharma in Sombrillo, and Santa Clara Pueblo members Jose Lucero, Dave Warren and Rina Swentzell.
At the end of their tour, visitors can venture out onto the Museum’s open-air terrace to see Castillo’s favorite piece — a line of text from a Tewa home song, mounted on an exterior wall with permission from Nambé Pueblo. It reads, “My home over there, now I remember it.”
“I wanted to use that sort of as a postscript or epilogue to the visitor’s visit,” Castillo said. “Referencing the idea that, ‘My home over there, now I remember it’ in a very practical way but also the illusion of home. That we can never really hold onto it, that it is a memory.”
OPENING CELEBRATION
Sunday, May 24
• noon to 6 p.m. — Free admission to the New Mexico History Museum, Museum of Art, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the Museum of International Folk Art
• noon to 1 p.m. — Native American drumming in the courtyard of the Palace of the Governors
• 3 to 6 p.m. — Lowrider exhibition outside the Palace
• 3 to 5:30 p.m. — Book-signing in the History Museum gathering space
• 3 to 6:30 p.m. — Exhibitions on the Santa Fe Plaza including spoken word, karate, mariachi, flamenco and pipe-and-drum music
Monday, May 25
• 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. — Free admission to the New Mexico History Museum, Museum of Art, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the Museum of International Folk Art
• 11 a.m. — Procession from St. Francis Cathedral to the Museum
• 11:30 a.m. — Lion Dance performance outside the Museum
• noon to 5 p.m. — Exhibitions on the Santa Fe Plaza including music and dance, vintage car displays and historical clothing
• 1 to 4 p.m. — Ice cream social with live music and historical photo boards in the courtyard of the Palace of the Governors
• 2:30 to 4 p.m. — “Telling New Mexico” panel discussion and book-signing in the auditorium of the History Museum
Call 476-5200 or visit www.nmhistorymuseum.org for more information.