 Welcome to the Decolonizing Collections and Prioritizing Community Partnerships webinar. This is the second webinar in the series on social justice and conservation. I'm Sarah Satrin, the Education Coordinator for the Foundation of Advancement in Conservation. This program is organized by FAIC and volunteers from the AIC Equity and Inclusion Committee and the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network. Thank you all for being here with us. I'm going to give you a brief overview of the Zoom platform before turning it over to the moderators. So you should be able to see the moderators and panelists on your screen, as well as the title slide. To turn on the captions, find the close caption button at the bottom of the screen and click the small arrow, then select show subtitles. We appreciate all of the questions that were submitted before the webinar and welcome additional questions throughout the session today. You can ask your questions by clicking on the Q&A button at the bottom of the screen and entering your questions there. Your questions will be sent directly to the moderators and they'll address as many as possible. You can also use the chat box to share your comments and experiences throughout the session. The webinar is being recorded and you will receive an email when the recording is available. So I'll now turn it over to the moderators, Hector Verdeciat Hernandez and Amy Chong. Hi everyone, my name is Hector Verdeciat Hernandez. I am situated in Puerto Rico and I acknowledge that the land on which I live and work is the traditional ancestral territory. Of the Taíno indigenous communities known as Boticén, which were decimated after the European settlers arrived on the islands. I would also like to acknowledge that Puerto Rico is an invaded colony of the United States since 1898. For over 120 years, the United States has exercised its imperial dominion over Puerto Rico, denying a first self determination process for my people. As a Puerto Rican, I have the responsibility and an ethical obligation to continue educating and working with communities in the islands, the diaspora, and allies to demand reparations and a true self determination process. I'm an architectural conservation, conservator and architect training and director of the Escuela Taierre de Conservación y Restauración del Patrimonio Histórico de Puerto Rico at the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. My research focuses on the conservation of historic buildings and sites with emphasis on vernacular construction, technical analytical understandings of traditional building materials, and technologies in the Caribbean region. I also currently serves at the co-communications officers at the AAC's Emerging Conservation Professionals Network. I hold a Master of Science in Historic Preservation, specializing in architectural conservation from the University of Pennsylvania, a Bachelor of Environmental Design architecture from the University of Puerto Rico, and I also studied some conservation science courses within Georgetown University and the University of Florence. Besides the aesthetic and architectural importance of buildings, since I'm a young age, I understood that preserved sites and structures are symbols of power. Official narratives about architecture for decades have suppressed vernacular and other types of structures that are not deemed to be preserved. My goal while working and engaging with working class communities is learning and working alongside them to preserve neglected spaces that do not fit in the traditional architectural curatorial discourses. Because when we preserve those sites, we can interpret and engage with the stories of those who have struggled for centuries, those erased from their regional history and culture. Now Amy will introduce herself. Amy, you're on mute. Thank you for that. I'm Amy Chong. Welcome everyone. I am situated in New York City. Before I introduce myself, I would like to take a minute to acknowledge that the land on which I live and work is the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the Lenape people. The Lenape lived upon this territory for thousands of years, beginning in the early 1600s, the influx of European settlers caused catastrophic disruption to the Lenape by displacing them from their homelands to areas further north and west and through the introduction of diseases. These actions resulted in massive deaths among the Lenape. Today, the majority of the Lenape live on two U.S. established reservations in Oklahoma. I believe the historical awareness of indigenous exclusion and erasure is critically important, and we must continue to recognize the hundreds of indigenous nations who continue to resist, live and uphold their sacred relations across their land. We have an ethical obligation to begin the process of working to dismantle the ongoing practices and legacies of settler colonialism. I also acknowledge the enslaved and free Africans and African Americans whose labor and lives built the city in which I live and work. So I'm a conservator in the anthropology department at the American Museum of Natural History, an institution whose origins are rooted in colonialism, a legacy which the museum continues to struggle with and confront to this day. Annual Columbus Day protests and demands to remove the Theodore Roosevelt statue from its entrance have been reactions to this. At the same time, there have been ongoing efforts over the past decades to nurture long-term partnerships with communities, and we must continue to support and work with them to recognize, confront and address the injustices of the past. Since 2017, I have been working on the renovation of the Northwest Coast Hall. As part of my responsibilities for the project, I initiate and facilitate outreach and collaboration efforts on behalf of the conservation team with indigenous communities represented in the hall. Prior to the Northwest Coast Hall, I worked on a project stabilizing and rehousing AM&H's Siberian collection, which involved partnering with indigenous community members from Saqqa and Shikotka. I have a master's degree in art history and a certificate in conservation from NYU, as well as a master's in anthropology from Columbia University. I'm currently enrolled in the anthropology doctoral program at the CUNY Graduate Center, where I hope to build upon my technical knowledge as a conservator and approach issues using alternative theoretical frameworks. My realization that building relationships with stakeholders should be fundamental and foundational to any work that I do began during my conservation training, when I was assigned to treat an unprovenanced pouch made from animal skin and membranes from one of my classes. It became important for me to learn where this pouch came from and who the people who made and used it were. After consulting with scholars and scientists, I learned that the bag originated from the central upick of Alaska, and it was the upick individuals who immediately knew what it was and could answer every question that I had about it. Throughout the years, I've realized the importance of seeking and prioritizing community input on the fate of collections and recognizing that notwithstanding my training, I may not always be the one who should make the ultimate decision. I also believe that we as conservators are the ones who get to work most intimately with collections and should leverage our skills and knowledge to actively support communities in reconnecting them with their cultural heritage and belongings. Thank you. So, now we're going to introduce our panelists and today's topic calls to the colonized collections and partners with communities have gained momentum in recent years. And addressing will mean transforming the way with you and interact with traumatic history with collections and people this entering white colonizer perspective and addressing the traumatic histories that have led to our existing systems. The current racial justice movement has made the need to be inclusive and to partner with communities, even more clear. It would look like if we'd reacted conservation traditional top down approach and instead shared authority with black indigenous and other communities of color. This session will examine the need to dismantle our problematic foundations and discuss how we can reach our work through partnership with others. And now, it is my pleasure to thank our panelists, Dr Melanie Adams, George Garcia, Randy McDonald, Chicks Chicks are jumped off. Thanks for being here with us. First at, at the time, it is my pleasure to welcome our first speaker, Dr Melanie Adams. Dr. Adams is the director of the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum. With more than 25 years of community engagement experience in museums and higher education, she is dedicated to bringing stakeholders together to address relevant community issues. Previously, Dr. Adams served as deputy director for learning initiatives at the Minnesota Historical Society, where she led efforts to develop strategic partnerships, audiences, and resources within local communities. During her tenure, she created the Community Outreach Department to provide partnerships and programs outside the museum walls. Dr. Adams was the managing director of the Missouri Historical Society from 2005 to 2016, where she oversaw more than 700 St. Louis Community programs annually, addressing the cultural and social concerns of the community. Dr. Adams holds a bachelor's degree in English and African American Studies from the University of Virginia, a master's degree in education from the University of Vermont, and a doctorate from the University of Missouri, St. Louis in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Great, well, thank you very much for having me. And as I work on sharing my screen, I would like to recognize that I sit on the ancestral lands of the Piscataway and Anacostia of Washington, D.C. And so we continue to respect their cultures and to find ways to work with them, especially in regards to what we're going to be talking about today. So we should be ready to go. So I'm not sure how many of you have been to the Anacostia Community Museum. So I wanted to kind of give you a quick overview of that with a few images. But the Anacostia Community Museum was founded back in 1967. And we were actually founded out of a time very much like what is happening right now in terms of the racial unrest that was happening in this country. So the Anacostia Community Museum has always been a Smithsonian Museum. So that's something to keep in mind. A lot of people don't realize that. And we were actually founded because the Smithsonian recognized they had to do outreach to the African American community. So they selected the site in Southeast Washington, DC where we remain today. And our first director, John Canard, was actually a community organizer. So he was not a museum professional, but he was a community organizer who then hired other community organizers, which I think really goes at the impact of community-based museums serving as a hub for the community. So that's a really great origin story for the Anacostia Community Museum. So today we're in our 53rd year. We are in our second location. So we've since moved, but we're still in the Anacostia Community. We welcome roughly 35,000 visitors a year. We have over 3,000 collections. We are a collecting museum as well. And we do a variety of community-based museum, community-based programs from exhibits to public programs, K-12 education taking place on our grounds. So what I was gonna talk with you a little bit about today really is the collecting initiative that we have in place that really started, I think at the beginning of this pandemic and has since grown. So I really loved what Hector said about preservationist power. I wrote down a few great things he said, but preservationist power, I thought was really important. And the way we really look at decolonization at the Anacostia Community Museum is exactly as he mentioned in terms of re-centering the story to include multiple perspectives. That's what we were founded to do. So we were founded as a museum that was telling the perspective of communities of color, not necessarily a white-centered perspective. And so this really goes into everything that we do. And so the images you see here, so right after the pandemic and then the unfortunate killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, we really realized it was really important for us to go out and begin collecting these stories, specifically from the community in terms of how they were responding during this time and really how they were being resilient. That is our whole theme around this collecting idea was how are people being resilient during this time? And so we did it in a variety of ways. There were a few different protests happening in DC. There was a big one at Lafayette Square, obviously Black Lives Matter Plaza, but there were also a lot of smaller ones happening in communities around the DC region. And why that was really important to us is we feel like you always have records of the larger communities, your LA's, your Chicago's, New York's, where they're doing these types of protests. And it was really important for us to look at the smaller communities. So Alexandria, Virginia, looking at small cities or small towns in Maryland, really looking at how they are responding to these issues. So some of these images you'll see are from a few different places. And these are things that have been acquired into our collections. We just had our collections meeting last week. So a lot of it is really the signage that was taking place, the signs that people were carrying during the protests. And one of the reasons why I like the free water snacks here is it really shows how people were taking care of each other. And I think that's really important to show it wasn't only about the marching, but it really was. There were people who figured out, how could they help? And they may not have wanted to march, but they wanted to make sure the people who were marching had water and snacks. This is not new for the Anacostia Community Museum. So we've always collected this type of material. And what you'll see here is actually images from the Freddie Gray protests that took place in Baltimore. So in conjunction with our Latino Center, we were able to fund and purchase the images from the protests were happening there. And what this really allows us to do is to tell a more complete story around the protests that are happening, not only that ones that are happening now, ones that happened in Baltimore, but also just going back in our history as well. This is another sign that was collected at one of the protests that I really like. George Floyd isn't a wake up call. The same alarm has been ringing since 1619. Y'all just keep hitting snooze. So as we're looking for sides, we're also looking for ones that are fairly creative, but also the thing about this one that we really liked is it talks about the legacy of violence against African-Americans. So it's a larger story than just what happened in Minneapolis area. This one was DC Don't Forget, Jeffrey Price, Dequan Young, Marquise Alston, Terence Sterling, and Rafael Briscoe, naming other young men who has experienced violence at the hands of police officers. Again, showing that legacy of this is not a one-time incident. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how this plays out because obviously it's more than just the collecting around the protests, but the way ACM works, especially in regards to our exhibits, is a lot of our exhibits are based on the collections of oral histories from the community. So the exhibit we just took down, A Right to the City, used more than 200 oral histories telling the stories of activism in DC in the 60s and 70s in six different communities. And they looked at issues such as education, housing, transportation, and development. So this is just something that's in our DNA. Our upcoming exhibit that we're really excited about, we just have our new logo here, Food for the People, Eating and Activism in Greater Washington. And again, this is going to be based on the oral histories of community members, primarily community members of color, who are talking about the idea around eating and food activism in the DC region. And one of the things that we've been doing because the idea of food and activism has hit specifically related to COVID, we're also adding a section in our outside area that allows us to look at how this is impacting communities as it relates to COVID-19. And finally, the exhibit after that, we'll look at housing, again, another issue that impacts communities of color disproportionately, that we'll be using a book by one of our curators that looks specifically at an African-American community. So I will stop there, but just really the way we're looking at decolonization is really how are we diversifying the stories we're telling about our community. Thank you, Dr. Adams. Now we're going to present the work of Joel Garcia. Joel Garcia, we show, is an artist, art administrator, and cultural organizer with more than 20 years of experience working trans-nationally, focusing on community-centered strategies. His approach is rooted in indigenous-based forms of dialoguing and decision-making, non-herarchical, that lift both non-institutional expertise. Joel uses art-based strategies to raise awareness of issues facing underserved communities, youth, and other targeted populations, coordinating national press in publications such as the LA Times and Art Forum, among others. He has been a lead organizer, removing both the Columbus and CERA statues in Los Angeles and surrounding areas, as well as developing programming that counters those narratives and centering indigenous perspectives. He's the co-founder of Metzley Projects and indigenous-based arts and cultural cooperatives centering indigenousity into the creative practice of Los Angeles. He served as co-director at Self-Help Graphics and Art from 2010 to 2018, a nationally acclaimed arts organization founded in 1972, which helped nurture Chicano art and the other Los Muertos. Welcome, Yordescia. Thank you. Hello, everybody. Glad to join you on communicating here from Los Angeles, the ancestral homelands of the Tongva, Tatavium, and Chumash communities. I think for me, as an indigenous person living on someone else's ancestral homelands, it's important for me to talk about, I guess, my process with being an artist, being someone who could be in a leadership position in charge of developing what these things can look like for indigenous communities. And I do that work with what I call a value system of what I'm committed to as far as my community. Being an artist here is one thing. Being a member of the larger indigenous community in Los Angeles is another layer to it, but also being somebody who is ceremonially connected to a lot of these communities. For me, it's not easy to detach from one of those realities and just live here and work here as an artist, but rather walk with my whole self in every one of those spaces. So what I'm going to share here is a little bit of what I don't know, some folks have convinced me to call it some best practices around this work. And just want to walk you through my process. OK, it's shown on your end. So this image here is the pedestal in Ulvera Street where the Cerro statue was once stood or stood for about 90-something years. And I want to begin this portion of my work as kind of groundings and best practices. And again, this was this past summer during the summer solstice. And that kind of really bringing frameworks of ceremonies into this work I think is important for me, because in many ways this is healing work and ceremonial work. So this was a move of the Cerro statue at Ulvera Street on the summer solstice. And so the way I approach anything that I do in partnership with a variety of folks is who decides what we undertake, right? What is this project? What is this action? What needs to change? Who decided that? And really bringing in folks who are most impacted by whatever decision is made, what a reaction, but also knowing who's in opposition, not necessarily in a sense that they're against a change, but that there is a certain level of education that needs to happen so that there isn't an opposition in regards just for the sake of opposing something, but learning along the way. I think a lot of us are learning how to do this work. There isn't a template for us to do this decolonial work, or else we'd be having a different conversation today. So just acknowledging that there's a lot of learning that needs to happen. And then who's participating? Many times because a lot of this work happens within institutions, it becomes very difficult or very easy actually to forget who needs to be at the table to make these decisions or to even just engage. And again, being very clear about what is the change, who is accountable for making those changes, and very clear next steps to what we need to do. Building community, that can look like many different things. For me, when I talk about building community, or many of us here talk about building community, it takes form in those various layers that I mentioned, the artistic community. The community of activists in Los Angeles, the larger indigenous community of LA, and even there's layers within that for us here in Los Angeles. There's the folks who call this their ancestral homeland. Many of who are not federally recognized. So that also has implications on how decisions are made at an institutional level. When the system, the government is very much willing to acknowledge those federally recognized tribes. And not really take into consideration those who are not. So building community needs to be something or is something for me that is key and very central to doing the work that I do. And then a part of the slide is cutting off here, but how are others included? That's important for me. When we talk about knowledge keepers, knowledge carriers, some of these folks know a lot and it is in acknowledging their lived experience, but also the knowledge that they carry like for their own tribe, for this area, the relationships with other tribal communities, that is really important. And then how are youth are participating? Here in this photo, one of the students from one of the local schools who takes on a very indigenous approach to education, as the Columbus statue was removed, they shared what their vision for another LA could be. And then how are we bringing folks of diverse backgrounds together? It's one thing to do this as a community of indigenous folks, but if we're not doing the work to build allyship, educate others around our perspectives, then we fall into that trap of recreating hierarchies that we're trying to get rid of. This is another shot of the base of the Columbus that should be removed at Grand Park. Here goes the Columbus statue off to storage. And the process, many times, there's instigators like me who get things going, but then in that process, how do we ensure that many folks are able to participate? Can we develop tasks for people to take ownership of? Guiding the process, not imposing a specific process, knowing that things might change along the way. Collectively assigning roles and responsibilities and rotating leadership. I've learned that from the Sapatisas done in Chiapas about the importance of everybody taking or having an opportunity to lead a specific process. And for us, there's these empty spaces now that exist with no monuments like the Columbus statue or the Sarah statue is like, so reclaiming space is really important. Having presence in those voids for us or for me is key to continuing the momentum of how the narrative changes, how you uplift untold histories of place. So here we came back to the Sarah site on the Fual Equinox and with a simple act of tying prayerful acts to the space we changed how it looked and fell. And so reclaiming space, we talk about museums and how they can or cannot serve as a space of communion for indigenous communities, right? How can those actions, how can those programs really shift to build access? And when I talk about ceremony for me, it's like, how do we welcome people into a space? How do we nurture them while they're there? How do we ensure that they feel taken care of during these programs and not many times being spoken about and not really considered in how communities are brought in into spaces like museums and universities. So really being intentional about what that can feel like for folks. And this was what, two years ago now, November 2018. This site here is where the statue was at in Grand Park, a space managed by Allie County. And here it was last month, a couple of weeks ago where you see this big tree in the middle, that's where the statue was at. And now because of that removal, it has created an opportunity to do programming that is led by the Tongva community, the original peoples of this area of Los Angeles to retell or to tell their stories. This was done through a program called Memory and Futurity and Yagna, a partnership with the Allie County Arts that contains two projects. One is an installation by artist Mercedes Zorame, Tongva as well. And this installation here talks about how, in short, bringing the celestial bodies, the constellations down to our ground and how the ocean and the air and the sky meet together. And that's how, when we talk about monuments, she mentions that we're forced to look up, but we forget that we can look further beyond and look into the stars and acknowledge those histories and those stories as well. And then the other image is another component of this project where Cindy Alvitre, a Tongva elder, who applied for this opportunity, created a VR project around one of their creation stories. And we'll go back to this one. And so as part of that, there's also a book that talks about how the sun came to be. And it's these stories, I'm gonna stop sharing here for a moment, it's these stories that I think for us really redefine how we look at space, how we look at even in this moment, like when we talk about defining the police, what incarceration looks like or how it needs to be abolished. For a senior Los Angeles, there's a very direct line between incarceration and monuments of how this investment in upholding an idea of Los Angeles, then the policing that needs to happen in order to contain or sustain that idea. And then the lack of resources that come into communities like mine in East Los Angeles. That this investment in arts in order to maintain this idea of public space, civic art, for me has a very direct line. And it's something that I really focus my work around. So that's why when the introduction spoke about mentally projects, including youth and targeted populations, I come from those communities. And so my work around the colonizing is to be able to center those voices and bring them to the table so that we can create real change. Thank you. Thank you, Joel. Last but not least, it is my pleasure to introduce our third speaker, Brandi McDonald. Ms. McDonald is the director of decolonizing initiatives at the Museum of Us known until recently as the Museum of Men in San Diego, residing on the ancestral homeland of Kumi'ai peoples. She's a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation with ancestral ties to the Choctaw Nation. Brandi's work focuses on the application of anti-colonial, decolonial theory and methodology in museums, centering truth telling, accountability and systemic reform, which works to redress colonial legacy, structural racism and inequity. Brandi holds a bachelor's degree in applied anthropology from the University of North Carolina, a master's degree in international higher education from Loyola University, and is a PhD student in education studies at University of California, San Diego. She's a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow, American Alliance of Museums, Nancy Hanks Award for Professional Excellent Recipient and an AAM Diversity Fellow, Smithsonian Affiliate Fellow at the National Museum of the American Indian and sits on the board of the Western Museums Association. Thank you, Brandi. Thank you, Amy. I'd like to talk to you a little bit as a chair, chat a little bit, to talk about Brandi McDonald's and his presentation. I'm going to dive into my presentation. So this is the museum of us, formerly known as the San Diego Museum of Men. As you can see at the building, is ornately designed and looks similar to a Catholic church, very intentionally, but has always been meant to be a museum. Our museum has always been a cultural anthropology museum. It was birthed from the colonial endeavor and as you can see, it has nine colonizers etched into its skin. It's a monument to the colonizers. And so what does it look like to decolonize? It's kind of the work that we do at the museum of us is really trying to figure out what does that look like and recognizing that this work is not something that we just apply for a grant for. And then after the deliverables were done and we're moving on to equity, that this is a long-term commitment that has started about 10 years ago and is going to be something that is a part of our institutional fabric. And it's a part of the organizational ethos. And so my department is about, the Decolonizing Initiatives Department is about, I would say two, three years old. And it is one that is a part of the entire organization and it kind of umbrellas over all of the organization. Our museum, in addition to San Diego and also Balboa Park, where the museum is located as resides on the ancestral unceded territory of the Kumeyi Nation. The Kumeyi peoples continue to maintain their tribal sovereignty and our stewards of this land. They've been here since time immemorial. We're so fortunate and grateful that they continue to work with us and share their ancestral knowledge. They don't have to. And with our history and the ways that we have oppressed and silenced and inhibited access to the Kumeyi's peoples with their cultural belongings and ancestors, they may not have should have, but we really are grateful that they are continuing to work with us and we're working towards building trust and being accountable to our history in our past. So what is our museum and what's the footprint of our museum? This is kind of, oh, decolonizing, excuse me. Let's first start with the decolonizing principles. My slides are out of order, but these are our decolonizing principles for our organization. The decolonizing principles are really the parameters, the fluid flexible parameters for our organization. And so everything that we do within our decolonizing umbrella is sorts and filters through these guiding principles. And so we wanna make, so I think in the next few slides, I'm gonna show you a little bit about principles and practices and the ways that these guiding principles manifest into space. Really quick, just before we move into this principle and practices, I wanna just tell you about the footprint of our museum. We have 75,000 ethnographic cultural resources. And so those cultural resources range from a variety of indigenous and non-indigenous populations across the world. We talk about how the one country that we don't have representation from is Norway. And so I think that that's a testament to the colonial legacy and the way that we've contributed and benefited from the colonial endeavor within our history. We also hold 7,500 ancestors, around 200 representation from North America indigenous peoples, and then around, I would say 150 to 200 indigenous and non-indigenous representation community members globally or internationally. A lot of representation in all communities are different. And so this is where we kind of sit with these guiding principles is recognizing that the work needs to have parameters but be fluid enough that we can still kind of shift and move based upon the wants and needs and realities of the indigenous people and the non-indigenous peoples that we serve and also the cultural resources and their belongings that we continue to hold until they can go home to their relatives. So principles in practice. So we see our work sitting in two spheres but ultimately inherently connected. So we see the work in the context of policy and structural reform and also cultural and practice reform. And so with one of these, each one needs to work together and they need to move collectively together because I can write policy or someone can write policy all day. But if the practice doesn't align with the policy and the cultural of the organization doesn't align with that, then it's just fancy words that live on your shared drive. Same thing with practice. We wanna make sure that that practice aligns with the policies and we can shift practices but if an educational program continues to work and then say the educator leaves or let's say my position and I leave and someone comes in, if the policies don't match it it's not a sustainable change. And so we wanna make sure that it's a sustainable change. So I'm gonna highlight a couple of these that you see highlighted and then kind of we can always dive in more but I recognize that this is a beefy slide and I don't plan on diving into all of them. But one of the things that I did wanna mention is our colonial pathways policy and that has also shifted our practice. So essentially what our colonial pathways policy it was voted in unanimously by our board of trustees and it was worked collaboratively with the trustees and our staff and community members. And it says that everything that we hold in our cultural resources all 75,000 ethnographic items, ancestors, belongings that if the community wants them back and that they came to us through a colonial pathway or holding them would be a colonial pathway then they need to go home. And if the community does not want them home or want their items repatriated back then what does it look like to make sure we're stewarding the cultural resources based upon the wants and needs and the protocols of the community? So what is a colonial pathway? Here's how we define colonial pathways within the policy. One of the things that I wanna make sure is just to recognize that pathways go both ways. So coming into the museum can be a colonial paradigm but also going out. So if the community maybe if we bought something if we made sure that we paid and was legitimate through in working with either the collector or the artist recognizing that if we hold on to this cultural resource and the community wants it back and it inhibits cultural revitalization or repatriation of knowledge and ancestral connection then that's also a colonial barrier and we're replicating colonial harm. And so I wanted to give an example. And so this is a consultation that we did with Ambassador Oleis and Kalle. And so during this time one of the things that we have within our policies and our practices shifting our practices to recognize that the wants and needs of cultural resources or wants and needs of indigenous peoples and the cultural resources that we hold is that they are the experts on their cultural resources on the use, on the knowledge, on the care. And so this is an example of Ambassador Oleis and Kalle working with us to show a few of our cultural resources that were misidentified that we thought were one or were Masai but were not Masai. Additionally, if you look at this piece right here with you see the spear, he asked us if we were taking care of it and we were like, yes. And so our director of cultural resources was naming all of these different types of chemicals and the ways that we're caring for it. And he was like, no, you're not caring for it at all. It's actually dying. And so recognizing that we are not the experts, he is the experts. We asked, well, how should we care for it? Because that's our policy. If that's what they want us to shift our practice then that's what we do. And so he mentioned that we should take care of it and go and get animal fat and clean it with animal fat every so many times a year. And now we have our director of cultural resources went to the butcher, got animal, I think it was sheep fat and now cleans it regularly with that based upon the timeline that they provided. And it's really beautiful listening to her talk about it because she talks about as she cleans it she feels like that cultural piece, the sphere, the cultural resource took a breath of fresh air and was connected to its community. And I've seen it since this time of this photo was taken and it's very shiny when you see on the metal part. And so that's one of the things that we also make sure that we shift is that what does that practice look like and making sure that we are taking a step back and humbling ourselves and recognizing that we are not the experts in space, that the indigenous people are the experts in the space. One of the other things I want to also mention and I think that Joel mentioned a little bit about it is thinking about space. And when we talk about our building, nine colonizers are etched into our building. We don't own our building, our building has the city owned but we also recognize that we need to be accountable to our building and the ways that we have honored and uplifted our building. And so what we can't at the moment anyways, although I would love to, can't tear down the nine colonizers on our facade. What are the ways that we can start pushing back and holding the city accountable? Who is the city? And so this is in Google arts and culture is the way that we did this. Trying to think about making sure that we have a global reach but also being accountable to the ways that we've enabled this Eurocentric Western paradigm and also enabled colonized perception and silenced indigenous people and their realities. And so I just highlighted a few spaces and one of the things that I wanted to just read out loud really quickly is thinking about how we as the museum, how we reinforce colonial power prejudice by primarily including one-sided narratives grounded in centering Euro-American Histography and also that the dominant historical Euro-American narrative surrounded surrounding these nine pin depicted on the building is but one of the many ways that we have engaged in practice intentionally and unintentionally. And so truth-telling and accountability is at the heart of our decolonizing initiatives work and trying to make sure that we're not just doing a land acknowledgement where we're recognizing the ways that we have impacted and silenced and oppressed indigenous communities and the ways that our practices have also replicated the colonial harm and trying to be transparent about that and apologizing when we need to but it's more than just this apology in terms of words that it is an action, a very intentional action. Really quickly, I wanted to just show a couple of just images around the ways that additional manifestations where we think about this not just in a digital form but how it manifests into space. We also have decolonizing initiatives and action signs within our exhibits and so working with Maya consultants and engaging in conversations and also again goes into the space of looking around truth-telling and accountability the way that this is an archaic and oppressive exhibit and also what is our commitment because we have work going on and community members only you typically see the exhibit you don't see what's going on in the vaccine so we wanna hold ourself accountable the same thing is applicable with our KUMIA exhibit and then also if we have the opportunity is providing a QR code linking it to the grant like this one for example links it to the IMLS grant that we have so that community members can also see the ways that we've talked about this work with finding funding sources. So I'm gonna stop there. Thank you. Thank you Melanie, Joel and Brandy for taking the time to share your inspiring work with us. I'd like to be at the discussion session of a portion of our session. So I'd like to take a step back for our audience and let's start with the basics. I know you had touched upon this during your presentations but I really think it's important to take the time to expand upon this. The term decolonization it means different things to different people. What does decolonizing mean to you? What does it mean for the cultural heritage sector to decolonize and is there a right way or wrong way to decolonize? And I'm gonna ask Brandy to start us off after all you are the panelist with the term decolonizing formally in your title, so. Which is a lot of pressure. You're on a roll. That's a keep going. I can't be thinking about it. So as an organ when we first initially we first initially wrote the IMLS grant that funded my position because this was funded through the IMLS foundation or through the IMLS grant that we had. And so we wrote that it would be a sustainable position in department. We initially had decolonization department. And then when it came back to us in the space and people who were going to staff we were like it's decolonization sounds like you stop and then deliverables and then you're done and that's not what this is because this work is never ending. It needs to be fluid to the wants to meet the community changes. And so that's where it shifted to decolonizing because of the process and practice. And so that's kind of how I also see it is that it's a process and practice. I also see that it's at least from maybe where I said in terms of it's more than just that fantastic thing that cultural resources does and that fantastic thing that you do in policy or in exhibits that it's the entire organization because how identifying how we all replicate processes of colonial harm. And then taking a step and I think Lee Patel says this which I love or it's like taking pausing to decolonize or you take this pause of reflection and then like start addressing the ways that we're replicating this colonial harm. And so maybe it's in your HR department because there's a lot of colonization happening in there. Maybe it's in your marketing communications. Did you put a Columbus boat on a panel or like on your flyer? So I think it's kind of in that and then thinking about how that applies also is where is that those parts of colonization? Would any of our other speakers like to add anything? I think I just wanted to echo. I'm glad you started with Brandy because I was trying to read her slides and I love the way it's being defined and it's a little different with the museum like the Anacostia Community Museum. So when you look at a lot of your ethnic based museums they have grown out of the response of the Eurocentric aspects of your traditional museums. But I loved what Brandy said because that doesn't mean we don't always replicate especially in our policies and procedures. So it is important for ethnic museums to be able to look at how they do decolonizing work not only externally but internally. So it's great that we're telling diverse stories but are we replicating the harm in our policies and procedures for our staff? Yeah, and just to echo what Brandy said like decolonization or decolonizing is a starting point. It's not an endpoint, it's a journey. You know, that term has also been applied to so many different things now that it's lost its significance at times and indigenous communities are also gonna be creative with how they do this work and now you hear the term land back, right? And for many of us, that's what it is. With the removal of the Saras statue it began a conversation with the city about returning land to the Tongawe community. So sometimes these simple acts can really push us to have these difficult conversations of how do we arrive at some form of justice? Cause justice while we still have the construct of the US is not real justice for indigenous communities. So it's a journey, always being open to learning. It's like an onion, you peel back one layer you think you're done and you have another one to go. So it's a journey for sure. Okay, many of our attendees today are conservators. So I wanted to ask, training for conservators has traditionally focused on materials and the things they are made from rather than the people who made them or the community from which they came from. Having said that, we have reached a point in our profession where there is an expectation of consultation or collaboration as part of standard conservation practice. How can conservators use our skills to further these efforts instead of forcing our traditional ethical framework and cultural belongings from other communities? How do you or your organization work with conservators to ensure that the work that is done reflects the wishes of surrounding or descendant communities? I'm not going to pick on anyone this time. We now want to put Brandon in the spot, but what the slide she shared around the spear, I think that's really emblematic, right? One time I heard from an elder, like, have you all fed the items? They referred to them something else and the folks at the museum were like, fed them, what do you mean? Well, like, yeah, we, you know, and they shared that they, you know, they practice, you know, cleaning out the sage and the cedar and every year kind of putting the cedar and the sage back in as a way to, you know, keep that connection with baskets, for example. So it is a lot of relearning and shifting perspectives and understanding that many times it's not the object that's the important piece, but the relationship between the object and people. And until that becomes, you know, commonplace, it's always going to be this one thing where we value the object more than the community. Yeah, I, one of the things, so our works, I, our cultural resource department team and our NAGPRA manager and it's just all of our team, like we're really focused on making sure that our policies and practice match. And so we write practices in our policy too. So our cultural resource management policy, we're writing the fact that cultural resources, like inside the policy is recognizing that cultural resources are folks' belongings and that they're relatives and it's their connection to their past, present and future. And so with our, and this is learned from the communities and it has that fluidity in it. So if a community member or communities like Kumi is different than Lakota and that's different than Alaska. And so making sure that we're adapting to the wants and needs. We also are trying to find points of negotiation because we want to feed the cultural resources and we have that written in there. But we also recognize we're in a 100 plus year old building and there are critters everywhere. And so figuring out, can we feed the cultural resources for an hour and will that work? And like, what does that look like for like alternating and making sure that we're kind of adapting to our physical location? We also think about minimal disturbance because of that connection that we don't, not just because we don't move something because we don't wanna lose it because we don't wanna lose it but we also don't want to disturb the cultural resources and the community connected to it. So we're making sure that every time we move it it's an intentional move, not just cause we're just skipping it around. But all of those things are in our policies and then we change the policy if we have a consultation in the community says that's actually not it. Or if there's a policy around menstruating individuals who can't handle a cultural resource, then we have those signs that say that there's a cultural protocol around it that you can't handle it. And then we adapt accordingly and find different staff members that can't handle the cultural resources. So all of that's in there. We also, I think it's one of the things before I stop we have one thing that's written around stewardship and cultural stewardship around the staff as well is that we recognize that there's a lot of power in these cultural resources. And so if their cultural resources affects you in any way and like for myself, if I have a visceral reaction to a cultural resources in the policy, I have a right to say I can't work with this anymore, I don't feel well and there's no shame attached to it and we move on or that we're stopping for the day. And that is a huge step is recognizing the impact and power and that we are also a part of the stewardship process that they're not inanimate objects. So to follow up on that, can you describe programs that you or your organization have proactively implemented to engage local communities that you found to be particularly effective? How do you go about deciding who should speak for the community? Who do you reach out to first? And how do you go about building relationships and trust? I'm really glad that you brought up the word trust and I think Joel and maybe even Hector mentioned it in their conversations, because I think that really is one of the most important things here because I think as all of us have said, museums have not been the most trustworthy organizations in the past and now we're coming to you saying, hey, we want your stuff or more importantly, we want your story. And so how do we gain that trust? And someone, I was on another panel and I love the way she put it because she described it as when you're doing advancement work, you don't sit down and ask a donor, hey, give me $100,000, you just met them. Yet I feel like that's what we do when we sit down with communities. It's like, hey, we just met, do you want to do a program next week? So recognizing that while it might not be a financial transaction, it's actually more important because you're building trust and you want to be able to work with that group throughout time. It's not a one and done. And I think that's one of the things that I'm so happy to see more museums recognizing you are developing long-term relationships with these organizations. And so you can't really rush that. And I think someone said, it's like you're gonna move at the speed of trust. And so how are you doing that in a way that you're not just checking off a box? Like we worked with X group, we can move on to the next one because unless you sit down and talk with people, you don't know what wonderful things can come out of the collaboration. If you already have like, okay, I've got to get this program done, that does a disservice to both your organization and the people that you're trying to collaborate with. And, you know, I shared a little bit about the Columbus removal and the programming that has ensued since then in this last month. You know, I really have to thank the folks at the LA County Arts Department of Arts and Culture in being open to learning, in being open to changing even the ways the County works. You know, the County can be a beast of bureaucracy. And one of the suggestions that came from them actually from one of the staff members was that the panelists for selecting the two opportunities to program, they convened, you know, elders and youth from both the Tongva community and the Tatavian community. So in a sense, you know, I've sat in so many different grand panels that has given me such, it's been such a learning opportunity in order to like shift policy around arts funding that when you bring in youth and have them feel like they're empowered to make a decision, it is huge. When you bring in elders who've been neglected for, you know, for their knowledge of, have always been told that, you know, because they don't have a degree, they can't speak on certain things. Like even something small as sitting on a grand panel is a doorway for them to then continue to build their, you know, their practice around these things. And like somebody mentioned in the Q&A, like re-indigenizing these spaces. And for us, the response to the removal of the Columbus statue was re-indigenizing Grand Park. It sits next to Yangna, one of the villages here in Los Angeles. So by uplifting those stories and, you know, like I said, even just a little small shift in aesthetics you're re-indigenizing that space. It's not, and it is no longer about decolonizing but about, you know, bringing back those traditions, those customs, those practices. So I think a lot of it has to do with just small opportunities that can, you know, go a long way. So I have one question that I wanted to start with Joel. Then go to the other panelists. So museums, since their beginnings have been part of a past imperial and colonial enterprise. If we talk about an alternative world, do museums feed in a decolonial society or do they need to be abolished? I know this is a hard question, but... Question. So the infrastructure of museums, right? The buildings they inhabit, the resources they, you know, they already have in place. I think those are useful. You know, one of the tensions here at Los Angeles is that, you know, the tribulations here aren't federally recognized. So accessing resources for them to, you know, preserve their own cultural items is non-existent. So you have someone like the Autry who has been tasked with preserving and maintaining these, you know, these baskets, these cultural relatives, right? Does infrastructure at the Autry help? Yes. Does their current practice serve this purpose? I would say no. You know, I would say there's good people doing some really good work there, but as a museum itself, it does it, you know? So the infrastructure of it, yeah, it's useful. The approach to museums and how they currently operate, probably not so much. I think we have to, museums as a whole or institutions with collections have to really recalibrate the relationship to the items that they have in their collections. From one of, well, one, recognizing that some of this is plunder, that it was stolen, that even it was purchased from a community that is targeted, that it is coercive in nature and results as theft, right? You know, there's a museum who at this moment who have grown their collections because of COVID-19 and artists are so willing to sell their pieces because they need to sustain themselves, but they're selling below the market rate and museums are building these collections. That to me is theft, that's theft. And if we continue down that path, I mean, we're replicating the systems even under the guise of care to build up the institution and not really the community that's producing these objects and these pieces. I don't know if that answers the question, but yeah, infrastructure is great. Give me a building that's air conditioned, that's climate controlled for folks to, you know, put in their collections and their archives and, you know, I'll take it and, you know, we'll figure out how to run it. I think it's that part of like learning how to do these things is what's exciting and joyful. I really think we need to reimagine the purpose of museums. And I think to kind of emphasize what Joel was saying, it's such a paternalistic model of you can't take care of your items so we're gonna take care of them for you. And so moving to that model of how can we teach people to take care of their items so they can stay where they are? And part of me that's soul crushing because then we can't use them for education. So how will we allow people to learn if we don't have the objects? And I think it goes back to the original part of the presentation talking about people are more than their objects. So do we just have to think about creating a new learning model that is not always about the objects or it's not always about the objects on an indefinite loan or indefinite ownership because I think that gets into a whole conversation. But I really loved what someone said in the chat and it was talking about the financial compensation. So I'm saying that your grandfather's trunk from World War II is so important. Give it to me for free. So how are we making sure again to brand these points, our policies and procedures reflect our values? So if we're saying these artifacts are so valuable well what type of compensation? What are we doing? How are we making people feel like they're valuable? And I also just quickly jump into because I think I hear both Dr. Adams and also Joel is talking about is the way the cultural resources are coming into our space even contemporary times, it's a colonial pathway. If we are collecting and doing an under market value and we're acting like pawn shops and we've done that throughout our history. Our museum has done that, other museums have done that and we're continuing to do that because we're taking advantage of situations and moments of distress and we're taking advantage of that practice and then they're going into our cultural resources or collecting holdings. And it's the same thing with we're taking these intangible intellectual resources and these intangible intellectual property of community members, their stories, their songs, all of this, like that's their property and we're not giving anything back. It's not a reciprocal relationship other than well you get so much like publication for it. Like that's not good, you can't eat publication. And so I think that that's where it's really addressing that that's a replication of colonial harm. And so I think it's looking more towards the ways that we're seeing it. And I think museums do have a place, it's just we can't, we shouldn't and ever keep continuing to replicate that. And I think it is reevaluating our place but is addressing the ways that we're consistently interacting with folks and taking advantage of them and how the buildings are not meant for BIPOC folks we're black indigenous people of color. They're meant to like create stoic images of us and like people static in time. And I think that that's also shifting that paradigm because we belong in these places and there are stories that are housed in these places our ancestors, our belongings. Thank you. We have some questions coming from our attendees. I think we have a question here. Okay, Lindsey Williams asks, have you found much pushback towards these policies and goals? What's your experience with this group of community members who might not understand why these protocols or policies are in place? Is it okay if I, I don't want to take up too much space but, okay, thank you. So yes, we totally get pushed back. People get mad, y'all, change is hard. And especially when you're pushing back from dominant, you know, oppressive like hegemonic spaces, change is hard and it hurts and it taps on people's fragility. And we've had pushback from board members. And it's been, I mean, granted, I think about the work that we've done. We've accomplished a lot in 10 years and museums move at snail's pace and 10 years having this type of policy is like wild. And yet I wish we were so much more. But this was, it was through a very intentional process and the challenges is that it's, a lot of it is painful both for our board members and our staff members and for me, I cry a lot and being very transparent about that is that it's, we have to relive this colonial trauma to consistently like get these policies passed. And so those practices that we've implemented the strategy is what has kind of worked to get like our colonial pathways policy. We pulled from our archives and said, y'all, this is the terrible history. And this is actually, we didn't even like select it. We were just like, we'll take that one and pulled it. And there was just atrocities all over the place. So making sure that we're transparent both internally and externally is a process. And then recognizing the pain and taking pauses for those pain moments, both myself, but on the fragility that's been tapped into other folks. And then being really transparent is this is where we are. This is what indigenous peoples and black peoples and other communities of color have been saying for hundreds of years. It's not just some fancy thing that Brandi dreamt up one night or that our CEO Micah dreamt up that the community has been asking for us. So it's not like it's, it's more than just us. It's what the data that we've also collected as a whole. So it's kind of, it's addressing that and showing that it's more than just one organization that it's a collective movement has been kind of the strategy and the practices but people still stay mad. And they were mad when we changed our name too. Anyone want to jump in? Can I also really quick, sorry, is that okay? Just in terms of the, it's really for us it was really important for that process because we've had like the journey that even our board members and our staff members have taken and then we took together has created transformative spaces where our board members who were like old school archeologists and who have like perpetrated colonial harm and they were like, I didn't do this, what is this man? Now they're in this space with us and where they're like, yeah, I did do this. And this is so important. And like they're saying in a space is where I don't have to. And I think that that while very painful and difficult that timeline was really important for us to continue to move forward into these spaces. And the pushback is, it's real, but it's also the perfect opportunity to like educate folks. With the Columbus statue, the County very much saw this as an art object. And the concept of de-assessing it was scary to them. Fast forward to the Sarah statue where the city, a week after it was removed or less than a week put in de-assession was one of the first strategies, right? So we got a lot of pushback just by bringing up that A word but now it's a reality, now it is a first strategy. Like if this thing is harmful, then let's just get rid of it. But let's also have a process in place that centers folks that, this decision isn't made by elected officials or by folks in power, but by the community. So sometimes those, that pushback can lead to some transformative change. Okay, I have one question from the audience also. This is specifically for Joel. Could you talk a little more about the direct line between incarceration and monuments, policing and under resourcing of community from his experience? Absolutely. Where the Sarah statue was, there's right next to that site right next to that park. There is a community of unsheltered folks. And then there's also a temporary homeless shelter, right adjacent to that. The level of funds dedicated to some of these spaces in comparison to housing our unsheltered folks is just gross, right? At the moment, those two Sarah statues are one from Alvaro Street and the one from the San Fernando Mission sit in a climate controlled warehouse, right? This took place during the summer. So as these two objects have been out in the environment for a long time, sit in a climate controlled warehouse, the irony of that while unsheltered folks in the heat of the summer have to endure exposure to the sun. The one of the entities here in Los Angeles this year funded $4.8 million in grants to arts organizations and other organizations that have arts programming. Of that 4.8 million, only about $70,000 went to organizations that have programming for indigenous communities. That 4.8 million does not include the money dedicated to the civic art collection or like maintenance of either the city or the county. So $60,000 going to arts programming for indigenous folks here in Los Angeles. That to me is just shameful. And we know, right? Like native communities are experiencing youth and native communities are experiencing the highest rate of suicide than any other community. So the invisibility that gets created by these monuments has those implications on our young folks. Where I grew up, or more specifically, Grand Park where this Columbus statue was, there was also an encampment that was pushing for racial justice. That encampment was raided, removed and a portion of Grand Park is now fenced off. So that to me is like a direct connection between the disinvestment in communities of mine but the investment and upholding white supremacy. The policing that it takes to maintain those parks, the policing that it takes to remove folks from those areas, and then the level of security that exists in those spaces. Not just the physical presence of police but the cameras, just all of it. In a time where we're dealing with reconciling with our, as a society, how we even, me as complicit in upholding racism, I think it's important that we also reconsider what these spaces being and if they even still hold value to what we hope this country can turn into. So for me, that line between disinvestment and white supremacy ideologies is very short. It's one step removed. So yeah. I have a question for Melanie. Melanie, how do you balance the needs of a larger governmental organization like the Smithsonian with your obligations to the communities around you? Well, and it's interesting. So even at my other two institutions, they were quasi-government public institutions. So you do always have that push and pull whether you're getting money from the legislature or your local city government. And I think that's what I really liked what Brandy said around truth telling. I think as long as you are being accurate in your information and you're talking about the harms that had been done and how you are rectifying them. So I think it's really important. And one of the things I always emphasize with this is how history was taught and why it was taught in that manner. That starts everything. So when they're talking about school groups and it's like, well, they were taught history in a manner to maintain the status quo. There is a reason why kids know about certain historical figures and not others because the others did not fit into the narrative that we wanted this country to tell about itself. And so really being honest about that. And I think today's young people are smart. They know this. So it's not like we are infusing their minds with things that they don't know. They recognize inequality. Children know if something is unequal when they're toddlers, they understand that. And so I think in order for museums to be authentic we have to mirror that. We can't continue to support a narrative that we know is incorrect and that we know is causing more harm. And so I think, and they always say, just the facts, it's more than the facts. It's the interpretation of those facts. And I feel like everywhere that I've worked I've really had that opportunity to talk about re-centering the stories the stories that we're telling to not only include people of color but to tell the stories from their perspective. Thank you. I have another question from the audience. How do you balance self-care with this word that is re-traumatizing? I think that is the valid question for everyone. Well, I think it's a really interesting question. Like, what if you had asked it pre-pandemic? Because I think we're all struggling with a variety of things right now. And I always feel like I am not the best model at this but especially working with community, it is a 24-7 job. You are at community meetings in the evenings. You are working on weekends. So I always like to say with my staff, take care of yourself. Like if you're not in the office on a Friday afternoon, maybe you worked Friday evening. Maybe you're working Saturday. So I think it goes back to Brandy's idea around are we creating these, recreating these policies that just do not fit with our current reality of how people work nowadays. And it is really draining. And I loved what Brandy said. It's kind of like, if you need to step out, just step out. There should not be any questions. There should not be a whole thing. It shouldn't become a thing. You've just stepped out and you're able to take care of yourself. But I think it's so hard because we all want to do the work and get it right. So I think, personally, it's just really hard. Yeah, this work is insanely difficult. It is taxing, it is emotionally draining. But when an institution is willing to just let go of what they're used to in facilitating a meeting, bringing people together and allowing the space for community members to shape what that can feel like, as difficult as these things can be, they can also be very nurturing and joyful. And going back to the last program at Grand Park, the one that I shared images for, to know that the folks on staff at the county, at the county arts department, were now doing the work that I'm usually doing of making sure that security guards are aware that certain things are okay, that they're the ones taking the leadership role in educating other folks who might not know. And it's not me running around trying to diffuse tensions everywhere. Then it feels good because then you can sit there and enjoy the community coming together. You can enjoy people being seen for who they are. You can enjoy elders singing their songs. And as difficult as it is about talking about trauma and what occurred in these spaces, you also walk away with it feeling nurtured and letting go of some of it too. So it is just kind of considering how we facilitate these conversations. I think for me, facilitation is huge. And if we take that healing centered approach to a lot of this work, I know this trauma informed approaches are like really big at the moment, but looking at it from a healing perspective and starting there, then I don't know, it doesn't feel so heavy. And it feels good to do some of this work because it is about letting go about some of these horrific things that have happened and we can finally put them to rest and talk about how we can bring each other together. So I think, I agree with what everyone was saying. I think that I also just, there's so many levels of trauma and the ways that we're impacted by trauma. Just giving an example, like I talked about thinking about the reactions and interactions with the cultural resources and how that affects, just it can affect different folks, but there's also even just the education like the Google arts and culture platform that I shared. I had to write the content for that and I had to relive the atrocities that the colonizers did to indigenous people in each of the different documents and dissertations and all of the stuff that I've read in addition to rewriting it and the edit and all that process. And that hurts and it was very taxing. And again, I cried and I'm not ashamed of it because I think that it's real and being honest and accountable to my space and then also honoring the sacrifices that our ancestors had to make to be here, I think is a space when I think about self-care as recognizing and addressing that in mind. So hopefully it doesn't continue to replicate for the next person coming in my position and what does that mean for writing that in policies? I also think that when we talk about like, I was very honest with my supervisor as a CEO and I was very honest with him and then also the executive management team that I couldn't be in a meeting these next couple of days and is it possible to spread them out because I've just done all this research and I'm processing it and I'm trying to heal from it and I'm in a lot of pain from it. And that's hard to say to them when it's not their ancestors and they don't always get it. And I think it's like trying to like figure out how to create like bridge this barrier so that they can understand that was it's something that I'm working on and like, what does that look like? I also think what we've done in our policies is writing in is that self-care looks different. So maybe it's a walk to go get a luxury beverage and you have that written into your budgets. Maybe it's that you can take your laptop and then go outside and do your work because you need to be connected in nature. Maybe it's also we're working on thinking about sabbatical leave in the context that community members have to take vacation leave for their ceremony and that's not right because it's vacation is different than a ceremony leave. And so what does that mean to have time off specifically for that? And ceremony looks different for each person. Even folks who are atheist, they have a specific type of ceremony that gives them life and gives their community life. So finding that the context of community is also where we've kind of sit in and I don't know if we've cracked it and I got it right yet because we're still working on it and we're still exhausted and sometimes in pain but I think that that's constantly like is the wants and needs and self-care I think needs to consistently evolve based on where we are in our journey. Thank you everyone. We have another question from the Q&A chat. What are important steps for predominantly white museum staff to take care, to take before they reach out to collaborate with communities so that they don't continue to use, cause more harm? I'll go if that's okay because I think I come from a predominantly super white organization that's founded through like a white anthropologist. And so I think that looking and taking that step of reflecting on where is your colonial rot is really important and what is achievable. I think that when I think what we did, we tried to do an evaluation space of where and it all stemmed from cultural resources. Everything stemmed from cultural resources and a sustainable change was through cultural resources. So we started with changing words and language because language is incredibly important and it replicates colonial harm. So it's not, it wasn't a lab, it's a storage room. They're not specimens, they're ancestors. They're ancestral human remains. They're not mummies. Come look at the, no, they're mummified ancestors. And thinking about like belongings, their cultural resources, belongings. They're not just an artifact, their connections to community. And so we switched language early on and we consistently replicate and we just address it and we move on. We say, okay, moving this is, and if it's a community member says, actually we don't want it called that, we want it this, then we shift. Just like there's a kumiai vessel, we were calling it an oya for so long in our cultural resources. The community was like, that's actually a colonial term. That's not our word, it's a vessel. Oya is Spanish colonial. And we're like, oh, so we kept that information in our cultural resources archives so it can be tracked. And yet we've switched it to everything that says that it's a vessel and we've changed that. And so being kind with ourselves when we mess up is, I think, because we're gonna make mistakes, we always make mistakes. It's kind of where we sit. I think another thing that in terms of what I see in the field is everyone's like diving in to do a land acknowledgement. Y'all, I said fully support a land acknowledgement. And I also recognize that my organization, we've been doing this for a handful of years, but we just now started to fully integrate a land acknowledgement. But we've been working on decoloring it because land acknowledgement was so hard to get implemented. So we went a different route. And then we built up to getting that land acknowledgement implemented. And so I think that that is like, where are those cracks within that colonial wall that's built? And y'all, let's start etching away at that crack. So then we can tear it on the entire wall. It's kind of where I see it's like, where can we give and pull? Cause I want us to be a 10, but right now maybe we can only push for a three. Otherwise it's gonna fracture and we can't do anything. And so like consistently building that is kind of, I think how I try and approach it and see the way it, I don't understand why it took so long for a land acknowledgement, but it did. And I just want to add, I think that's so important because so many people, like Brandi's overwhelming to me. She's doing such great things that are happening at the museum of us. And I'm so glad you said 10 years because people are like, oh, well we can never get where they are, but you have to start somewhere. And so I think it's really important, as you said, like museums are very slow. And so it was great to know that that took 10 years, you didn't get there in the last year or two with the grant. I mean, if you're real about it, build it into your budget. You know, establish a position even if part-time like Brandi's. And, you know, put some resources behind that because if not, what happens is you burden the folks you're actually trying to help. And one of the things I always see that is super harmful is, you know, these institutions find one person is willing to work with them. And they latch onto that person while at the same time, silencing other folks from the very same community and then creating, you know, internal problems that didn't exist before. So if you're doing this work, talk to everybody, even if you get deferring opinions, talk to everybody, you're gonna learn from all of them, but also compensate them. Like I said, build it into your annual budget and, you know, try and do it in a kind, gentle way. Don't force any questions, just offer people an opportunity to have a meal and begin a conversation because once you decide for them what you wanna do, you've already imposed a process and begin with a conversation, maybe they don't wanna engage at the moment. Maybe they're still dealing with certain things that they need time and space for. So it could take five years to like even begin a program around something. But in the in-between, you've built a trust, you've built, you know, relationships. And I think that's what it's about. If you're genuine and honest about building those relationships and trust, then it's gonna take a while. Yeah, also X, I agree, hardly is also, y'all like we need to apologize. And we need to authentically apologize. And that's something that just that we, within the last couple of years that we have in our work is in all of our consultations, we apologize. And I fully recognize that it's not, it hasn't always been me that's replicated colonial harm there a hundred plus years. And yet I'm a representative of the institution and I have a responsibility to apologize for it. And we don't just say, yo, we're sorry. We say that we recognize that we've benefited and displaced your cultural resources and your ancestors from their space, the cultural resources are in the space of diaspora as well. And like, what does that look like in that trust is earned and that you don't, may not trust us and you probably maybe shouldn't trust us but we're working on earning that trust. And we hope to maybe build that trust and that is through actions. And this is the first action of many. And it's not just me or like a coordinator or well, positions are very important but we also recognize that that should also come from our CEO. And so if our CEO has time in his schedule he will also be the person who comes in at the very beginning to apologize to the community members and introduce or it is me or it is the director of cultural resources but it shouldn't just be the indigenous director of decolonizing initiatives, apologizing all the time. It should be like all of our organization. I think that that's something that it's more than just words, it's actions plus those words. Thank you. I think that's actually a really important point to end on. I wanna thank all of our speakers today. This was an incredible discussion, a lot for us to digest and to think about. I would like to express our gratitude for your sharing your experiences with us. You three are such inspiring change makers and we're really privileged to have you here with us today. At this time, we would like to share one more slide before the end of our session. Hector and I listed a few action items and resources for conservators to start thinking about how we as individuals and as a profession can start to decolonize our practices. You haven't taken these steps already to those of you who attended the contested monuments discussion, you might recognize a couple of these. Let's start off with the basics. Learn the name of the communities, nations who originally inhabited the land that you're currently on. I know many are familiar with this information but for those who aren't, there are a few resources underneath the first bullet that you might find useful. To find the name of the people who belong to a particular land, you can text message a zip code to the land acknowledgement bought, created by code for anchorage and this info is pulled from the native land map which illustrates the breadth of their territories. These are quick and easy ways to get some basic information and these two resources are constantly being updated so please keep that in mind. Take time to learn about the rich history and traditions of the people who lived on the land you currently are on. Their stories and traditions are all around us and I could give examples just from my own personal experience but I know we're running out of time so I'm gonna move on to the next point. As Brandi had mentioned earlier, I just wanted to follow up on using land acknowledgements to honor the communities and their land that you reside on. We have a link there for a US Department of Arts and Cultures guide which again is a good place to start but these are all starting points and after you've done your research, engage with communities regularly, foster long-term relationships instead of the one-off project dependent instances that often characterize conservation work. Also, adopting the guidelines and practice for community engagement as an example there is AR guidelines. These were written by a group of tribal and non-tribal museum professionals to serve as a guide for museums and community members to navigate collaborative work. This document can serve as a guide but once getting to know your community, you will discover areas where your skills can best serve them. Also, advocate that a museum in an urban context engage with surrounding Latino, Black, Asian and other folk communities. Conservators should engage with different BIPOC communities and prioritize the knowledge of those communities. Some museums are already doing a good job of truly including BIPOC communities in their core work. Also, advocate the indigenization of the conservation curriculum and update the AIC code of ethics. In order to do this work of decolonization, we need to learn about the history of colonialism in our profession. Only then can we be prepared to recognize and confront injustice and inequities in our field. We also need to recognize that our work needs to center people rather than things and articulate this as the state priorities for work. It's always important to us ourselves who are we preserving these collections for? And for the last point, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I'm sure many of you have heard this before. I think this is especially hard for conservators but we need to recognize that we are not the only experts and that we may no longer be the ones authorized to make the judgment calls. It's time to shift the balance and change the paradigm. This is an easy work and requires a high level of self-awareness and empathy. And if you constantly have questions for yourself or have doubts, you're probably heading in the right direction. We're gonna move on to the next slide. This is a slide with the links that feature the work of our panelists. They were already featuring the chat but we are featuring them for the people who will be watching this recording later. So thank you again for joining us and I'd like to turn this over again to Sarah. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks everyone for joining us and a big thank you to the moderators and the panelists for this super informative and personal discussion. There's one more free webinar in the social justice and conservation series. The final webinar is titled, conservation is not neutral emotion and bias in our work. And we're working to schedule that webinar for February and we'll share the date as soon as we have it. We're also planning a workshop on creating 21st century conservation ethics framework which will take place in March. And that will be an interactive session that will allow participants to work in a small group with facilitators to discuss topics from the webinars and work to reimagine what a more equitable conservation field could look like. The workshop will be limited to a smaller group and we'll have an application process and a registration fee and the application will be available soon. So I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and keep an eye out for the recording of this session which you can share with anyone who didn't make it here. Thank you for participating. Thanks for being here.