The Museum of the Cherokee People is opening a new exhibit to highlight Aniywiya (Cherokee) voices and perspectives in response to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
The exhibit is called “Unrelenting: Cherokee People and the American Revolution" features historic artifacts, images, and documents displayed alongside works by Cherokee artists.
Brandon Dillard, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation is a guest curator for the exhibit. He told BPR that it was important for the museum to center the voices and work of enrolled members.
“ People get excited about anniversary years,” Dillard said. “They pay attention to the past in different ways. And so we wanted to use that as a way to invite people in to consider what do Cherokee people think about this time period and what happened in this part of the world in 1776 and the decades that followed because the conflict was ongoing for a really long time.”
The museum invited artists from the Cherokee Nation, EBCI and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians to create new works in response to historic treaties and documents from the Revolutionary era.
One of the featured artists is Laura Walkingstick, a citizen of the Eastern Band. Walkingstick works in a variety of mediums but most recently has focused on corn husk dolls, one of which appears in the exhibit.
“ Growing up I didn't see any dolls that represented who I was or my identity so I'd started creating my own dolls,” Walkingstick told BPR. “ It wasn't until a family vacation when I was younger, when I got to see my first Native dolls that came from the Diné Nation in Arizona. I really don't know how I got into the corn dolls. I think it was just more, like, challenge and curiosity.”
Her piece, titled Then and Now: Wrapped in Survival, depicts a woman standing upright in well-dressed clothing with a distressed American flag at her feet. She is surrounded by Indian corn, which represents life, fertility, nourishment, resilience, and cultural continuity — elements central to Cherokee survival.
According to Walkingstick’s artist statement, the work reflects on the American Revolution as a turning point in Cherokee history.
“During that era, Cherokee towns and cornfields were deliberately destroyed, and treaties promising protection were repeatedly violated,” Walkingstick said.
She goes on to write that the distressed flag at the figure’s feet symbolizes the broken treaties and the instability inflicted on Native Americans "through colonization."
Dillard said he hopes the exhibit encourages visitors to imagine what it was like to live through that period of conflict and consider what lessons it holds today.
The exhibit is open on March 17 through Dec. 30.
