Over a year and a half ago, the Museum began a new partnership with five high school students from Enid, Oklahoma. The students, as representatives of the Marshallese community in Enid, visited the Museum, explored the collections, and worked with Museum staff to create their own exhibition. The Museum has since moved forward with the installation of the exhibition curated by the students- now opening on Friday, October 16.
An exciting part of this process included the deinstallation of the “A.B. Lewis Case,” which has remained unchanged since 1991, when it debuted in the exhibit “Pacific Spirits: Life, Death & the Supernatural.” The Regenstein team felt the removal of this case was important for two reasons:
With its deinstallation, the entire gallery can now be devoted to regularly-rotating, co-curated exhibits. We hope that, over time, more of the Museum’s space will be dedicated to this type of shared storytelling.
A.B. Lewis collected many of the items on display in the Regenstein Pacific Halls during the early 20th century. While his contributions, via the Joseph N. Field South Pacific Expedition (1909-1913) are noted elsewhere in the hall, we can now use the space to focus on voices and stories from the descendant community.
Below: Mount makers Janice Lim, Ann Prazer and Erin Bliss deinstall the 30-year-old A.B. Lewis case. Photos by Chris Philipp.
Below: Erin and Janice install the Marshall Islands material. Photos 1-2 by Chris Philipp; 3-7 by Jackie Pozza.