Shelburne Museum unveils design for new Native American art center
Published: 09-28-2024 3:01 PM |
Shelburne Museum on Thursday unveiled the design of a planned building for its Native American art collection. It also announced a new architectural team that replaces a firm it severed ties with last year.
The Perry Center for Native American Art is being designed by Annum Architects of Boston and Two Row Architect of Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario, Canada. The collaboration joins together “noted firms with depth of experience in both major museum and Indigenous projects,” the museum said in a press release. Landscape design will be completed by Reed Hilderbrand of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Embedded in the design are careful listening, research and creative iteration of ideas, all reflective of how the museum has operated since its founding,” Annum principal Steven Gerrand said in a written statement.
The 11,200 square-foot space is expected to be the 40th building on the Shelburne Museum campus. Construction of the $12.5 million project is set to begin in spring 2025, according to the press release.
The announcement comes more than a year after the museum cut ties with Sir David Adjaye, the world-renowned architect originally hired to design the new building, after he was publicly accused of sexual assault and misconduct. He denied the allegations at the time.
“The many steps that led us to this moment are the result of a collaborative approach focused on communication and relationship building with Tribal Nations to create a national resource for the study and care of Indigenous art,” Thomas Denenberg, CEO and director of Shelburne Museum said in a written statement.
The collection is expected to include more than 500 items from 389 tribal nations in North America, including Indigenous art already stewarded by the museum and items gathered and donated by the center’s namesake, Indigenous art enthusiast Anthony Perry, and his wife Teressa Perry.
The museum said in the press release that it had collaborated with more than 50 Indigenous partners, who advised the center’s design, conservation of the collection and cultural protocols. Part of that collaboration included a series of listening sessions led by Two Row with leaders of tribal groups represented in the collection.
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“The Talking Circles guided us in considering this project in different ways,” Matthew Hickey, from the Mohawk Nation and a partner at Two Row, said in the statement. “The building needed to honor the host nation, the Abenaki. The internal space, where the items from many Tribal Nations will be housed, will need to accommodate unique moments with items in the collection and allow for those items to be to be looked at and taken care of in unique ways.”