Art institutions in the United States are increasing looking to Native American communities to organize public showings, or exhibitions, of ancestral art and artifacts.
Native American voices and artistry are at the center of one new traveling exhibition. Grounded in Clay opened on July 31 at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe. It travels next year to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, before taking more stops at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Grounded in Clay explores pottery from the Pueblo Indian area of the American Southwest.
In Pueblo pottery traditions, artists use their hands to form clay into many shapes and sizes. Then they fire it inside a very hot stove called a kiln. The process permanently hardens the clay.
60 Native American artists, museum professionals, storytellers and political leaders worked together to develop