Confronting a Legacy Collection in a Student-Curated Exhibit

April 26, 2025 · SAA · Conference Presentation

The Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting was held in Denver, CO on April 23-27, 2025.

“Confronting a Legacy Collection in a Student-Curated Exhibit” was a talk given in the the session “Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections.” Organized by Emmy Dawson and Amy Gillaspie of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the symposium presented case studies in managing legacy exhibits, data, and collections, the difficulties associated with them, efforts to mitigate these problems. The session highlighted the underlying current of ethical stewardship, research aims, tribal rights, desires of descendent communities within and beyond NAGPRA, and public expectation to examine the challenges archaeologists and museum professionals face when working with the legacy of museum collections.

Talk Description

Curating legacy archaeological collections poses complex challenges while offering an opportunity to engage students in critical dialogue about museum ethics, provenance research, and the politics of display. Stanford University students in my Spring 2024 course “Introduction to Museum Practice” grappled with the purpose, potential, and challenges of curating collections.

We co-curated the exhibition De la Tierra: Indigenous Ceramics from West Mexico Transcending Time and Space. On view at the Stanford Archaeology Center between May 2024 and April 2025, the exhibit drew from two collections of ceramics objects from West Mexico: ancient burial offerings of unknown provenience likely acquired in part from looting and twentieth-century sculptures made by Purépecha creators in Ocumicho.

The juxtaposition of a legacy collection with contemporary ceramics resulted in an exhibit sparking dynamic conversations. Students crafted exhibit signage posing questions like, “Do you think that these burial objects should be on display?” and “What do you think is a responsible way to collect objects?” Based on the outcomes of co-creating De la Tierra with students, I presented insights into the intersection of museum practice, pedagogy, and ethics, illustrating how student-led projects can train a new generation of radical museum professionals while pushing the boundaries of curatorial practice.