This Valley Is Sacred: The Ancestors Are Speaking
Curated by Bruce Love, PhD, with Latipa, Director of the Memory and Resistance Laboratory at the University of California, Riverside, CA
Museum of Art and History (MOAH), Lancaster, CA
May 11 - August 11, 2024.
This video, produced and narrated by curator Bruce Love, PhD, guides viewers through the exhibition. Original footage featured in the show was used in this video with permission from the curators and authors.
Text source: MOAH Lancaster, CA https://www.lancastermoah.org/
The Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) is pleased to announce This Valley Is Sacred: The Ancestors Are Speaking, a multi-faceted exhibition sharing both the harsh realities and the beauty of Native existence as experienced by the tribal groups that call the Antelope Valley their ancestral home.
Together, we, the First Nations of the Antelope Valley (Tataviam, Serrano, Vanyume, Chemehuevi, Paiute, Kawaiisu, and Kitanemuk), have created this exhibit to share the beauty and tragedy of our people. Forget what you thought you knew about California Native Americans. These are stories the history books left behind. This is our opportunity to tell you our story directly, from those of us who are alive to tell it. Trigger warning: Room ll describes five aspects of the 18th to 20th century tragedy that reduced California Indian population by 90%. Be prepared to be emotionally affected. Room IV will lift your spirits before you leave.
This Valley Is Sacred: The Ancestors Are Speaking, curated by Bruce Love, PhD, with Latipa, Director of the Memory and Resistance Laboratory at the University of California, Riverside, has been three years in preparation, spearheaded by the Lancaster Museum of Art and History’s Native American Advisory Council, representatives from the seven tribes that call the Antelope Valley home. Visitors will be transported through time in a series of curated experiences from the dawn of creation to the period of pre-invasion abundance, followed by the atrocities of forced labor in the missions, the almost extermination by soldiers and militias and land theft by settlers, followed by the resilience, recovery, and cultural revival of Native peoples today.
This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities and is also supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Learn more at:
MOAH Lancaster, CA https://www.lancastermoah.org/
Bruce Love, PhD https://brucelove.com/ & brucelove9@gmail.com