Community Curators
Upcoming events:
Saturday, June 14, 1-2 p.m. | Science Museum of Minnesota Level 6
Learn about the work of artist Jeremy Red Eagle of the Sisseton Wahpeton-Oyate, who specializes in bows, arrows, games, dance outfits, and metalwork. Red Eagle will discuss the themes of his current Community Curator display, including the story of the creation of the Dakota people.Free event — registration requested here.
How can museums create an environment where community members feel empowered to tell their own stories?
The items in the Science Museum of Minnesota’s collection originate from places all around the world. Through the Community Curators program, museum staff and community members collaborate to access and engage with objects in the collections in meaningful ways to foster a more community-driven practice of storytelling and interpretation.
Through this program, community artists, educators, and organizers select and interpret items from museum collections alongside their own work. The items will be featured in an on-site display in the museum lobby for the duration of three months, and each curator will facilitate a conversation about the selected objects and their meaning to their cultural community.
Currently on display
Jeremy Red Eagle
Metalwork
Red Eagle, Sisseton Wahpeton-Oyate, has been handcrafting traditional Dakota bows, arrows, games, outfits, and metalwork for years. In 2014, he moved to South Dakota’s Lake Traverse Reservation to reconnect with his Dakota roots by learning the language and enrolling in traditional art workshops. Red Eagle’s display includes custom copper cuffs and tells the partial story of the creation of the Dakota people.
January-March 2025
Bayou Bay
Affirmation Mirrors
Bay is a Twin Cities-based mixed-media artist and designer born in St. Paul on the occupied lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe peoples. His work embodies themes of nature from the micro to the cosmic, Black and collective liberation, healing trauma, time, portals, geometry, setting intentions for affirmations, asking questions, symbols, and identity exploration. Water is an especially strong theme in Bay’s work.
October-December 2024
Cyndy Milda
Beading/Quillwork
Milda's work takes inspiration from her grandparents’ jewelry-making, which she witnessed growing up with them in the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community. Her displayed objects include dentalium jewelry that draws influences from her grandmother’s French ancestry, a belt born out of a generational love for wrestling, and the first piece she ever quilled.
July-September 2024
Aaron Johnson-Ortiz
Weaving/Collage
In this display, Johnson-Ortiz curates a collection of works of two contemporary Maya artists — Yeymi Sumoza and Anton Vázquez — in the context of the museum’s Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed exhibit. The featured artists build on a 5,500-year-old legacy of Maya weaving, simultaneously preserving traditional themes and techniques while evolving them in their own work.
April-June 2024
Raquel Kaprosy
Weaving
Kaprosy learned the art of weaving when she was six years old, progressing from bracelets and small belts to double-sided designs on larger looms. She believes each weaver is the main character of the story they want to tell through their loom; she is passionate about honoring her heritage and culture through the textiles she creates and stories she tells.
January-March 2024
Cole Redhorse Taylor
Moccasins
A beader and quillworker since his teens and twenties, Redhorse Taylor takes inspiration from artwork left by his Mdewakanton Dakota ancestors — pieces that were not only useful, but also functional in his relatives’ everyday lives. His display combines moccasins he created with those found in the museum’s collections that were made by artisans from communities like his.
