Exhibition artists discuss the history of Plains narrative art and the inspirations behind their contemporary work during the 2024 Folklife Festival.

Chachi artisans look to the NMAI collection to revitalize their ancestral techniques.

An NMAI exhibition offers candid glimpses into Indigenous lives from the beginnings of photography to today.

A sculpture on display at the NMAI in New York can both captivate and calm.

See a stunning beaded purse that carries a family’s history.

The exhibition juxtaposes historical hides, muslins, and ledger books with more than 50 commissioned contemporary works to explore narrative art among Native nations of the Great Plains.

A tiny polar bear that a young Yupik artist carved decades ago carries a lot of history.

Exhibition of Narrative Art Shows More than a Century of Native Life on the Plains.

A pendant more than 1,000 years old immortalizes Mayan maize god Hun Hunahpu.

Museums are taking a hard look at what they have on exhibition and in their collections.

To better serve communities and connect them virtually with their cultural belongings, NMAI staff created a dedicated space and refined the museum's methods for facilitation.

A massive quilt created for and by survivors of violence makes a monumental statement.

An NMAI fellow uses the senses to show how dolls can make and preserve memories.

A Hopi pottery maker discovers her grandmother’s pot and inspiration in the NMAI’s Cultural Resources Center.

A California Indigenous woman partners with a Smithsonian ethnologist to immortalize her Rumsen people’s stories.

More than 25 years ago, the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre in Nova Scotia and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian began a partnership that continues today.

More than 500 Mi’kmaw items in the NMAI collection are destined for a new museum in Nova Scotia.

NMAI’s Cultural Resources Center takes on a monumental endeavor to extend the life of thousands of textiles and make them feel more at home.

Images in the Smithsonian archives of Zitkala-Ša show how this accomplished Yankton Sioux writer, violinist, composer and advocate for Indigenous rights and women’s suffrage lived in two very different cultures.

A cradleboard reconnects Walter Lamar with his Wichita great-grandmother.

Although current views may point to “political correctness” for changes in language and terminology, this is not something new.

Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala Lakota), museum curator and historian, highlights objects in the museum's collection that were created to honor the American flag.

NMAI returns the “Echenique Disc” to Peru.

Mandy Van Heuvelen, a cultural interpreter coordinator at the National Museum of the American Indian, shares the story of contemporary Native artist Nora Naranjo Morse. Morse created the sculptures that sit outside of the museum in Washington, D.C.

This ten-part series documents NMAI's first commissioned sculpture by Pueblo artist Nora Naranjo-Morse (Santa Clara).