Peabody Essex Museum Honored with Prestigious Award for “On This Ground”
What might the Salem witch trials and the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 have in common?
The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM)—just to the south in what might be described as the Upper Valley’s extended backyard—received a prestigious Awards for Excellence prize from the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) on Sunday for On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America, cited as the first major installation of its kind to combine significant collections of Native American and non-Native American art to help tell the complex story of the American nation. Vetted by a panel of distinguished museum curators from around the world, On This Ground was one of only 11 projects selected from a group of nearly 175 nominees to be recognized for its reflection of the values of inclusion, access, dialogue and engagement.
The curators, Karen Kramer, The Stuart W. and Elizabeth F. Pratt Curator of Native American and Oceanic Art and Culture; Sarah Chasse, Associate Curator; and Lan Morgan, Assistant Curator (click above to hear their own words and get a peek of the exhibition), state that PEM is leading the way in showcasing traditional American and Native American Art “on equal footing.” Parts of On This Ground are devoted solely to each separately, and other sections bring the two together. The exhibition contains 250 works dating from 10,000 years ago to the present.
Being located in Salem, it is no accident that PEM has a rich collection of art and history associated with the Salem witch trials. (Recently, PEM, the oldest continuously operating and collecting museum in the US, returned a trove of legal documents to their rightful place at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, coincidentally the nation’s oldest appellate court, where they are being digitized.) In this exhibition—as but one example of partnered stories—the history of the 1692 witch trials is paired with the somewhat contemporaneous but geographically removed Pueblo Revolt of 1680; the curators see similarities in themes of religious persecution, battles for land, and the role of art in conveying history.
PEM is a short commuter rail trip from Boston or a two hour drive from the Upper Valley. Note: It is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. There are other current exhibitions in addition to On This Ground. A favorite with visitors is Yin Yu Tang, a 200 year-old Chinese home that was brought from China and re-erected on the museum grounds. In addition to the PEM, Salem has other delightful attractions, (click here) with a trolley tour and the historic and (reputedly) haunted Hawthorne Hotel—though the proof was lacking on my recent visit there.
For more information about the Peabody Essex Museum and its current exhibitions, check out its website. If you have problems in accessing the introductory video for On This Ground, top, you can find it here on YouTube.
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.