Some nine months after taking over the Interim Director position at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture stalwart arts professional Danyelle Means (Oglala Lakota) has officially been appointed as the museum’s director. Means stepped into the interim position in December following the near-closure of the Center for Contemporary Arts last year (which survived, btw), and has been with MIAC since then.
“I’m feeling hopeful and excited.” Means tells SFR. “We have really big things to do, and we have an incredible responsibility not only to Native communities, but all of New Mexico.”
Located on Museum Hill, MIAC is part of the state museum system alongside popular institutions such as the Museum of International Folk Art. And though it has always been praiseworthy, recent years have found the museum repeatedly hosting stellar exhibits and collaborating on an unprecedented level. The ongoing Here, Now and Always show, for example, covers numerous tribes across generations, while the textile-heavy Horizons exhibit brought in numerous co-curators for a thrilling look at weavings, photography and more spanning more than 100 years. Perhaps most notably, however, MIAC’s Grounded in Clay exhibit traveled to New York City’s Museum of Metropolitan Art—and Means says there’s much more where that comes from.
“Really, it’s having an incredible staff and building on their great work,” she explains. “It’s also about being able to develop and nurture relationships with the communities here. The push I want to focus on is return visitors. I want to provide programming and exhibitions that keep people coming back—and though Santa Fe will always be a center for tourism, for me it’s about…how do I bring in families? How do I bring in moms with young children? What are we offering that really diversifies who is coming here?”
To that end, Means says, she’s particularly excited for a developing exhibit focused on skies, stars and cosmology tentatively titled Makowa.
“And it’s not just the night skies. It’s the sun; the celestial bodies; how different Native groups see the skies; the meanings behind that,” she says. “We’re focusing on this exhibition a little more broadly in terms of science and its relationships between Native cosmologies. We’re also hoping to bring in John Herrington (Chickasaw Nation), who was the first Native astronaut. We’re covering all the bases, and we have so much amazing art in the collection that references the skies and the moon landing and the stars—plus, we’re going to take it to all the historic sites across the state.”
Means says the show will be co-curated by Marlon Magdalena of Jemez Pueblo and Elisabeth Stone, MIAC’s deputy director, and will likely open in early June. Otherwise, she adds, the main goal is to focus on creating premium experiences at MIAC through original and collaborative programming.
“One of the things that came to me during the pandemic was that the idea of competition has fallen by the wayside,” she says. “We’re working with SITE Santa Fe for their revamped International [formerly Biennial], for example. We’re all colleagues here, and we have over 40 cultural institutions—let’s work together to do exciting things.”