Stronger Together: Advancing the Cultural Infrastructure of the Indigenous Plateau

FAIN: ZPP-283810-22

High Desert Museum (Bend, OR 97708-5035)
Dana Whitelaw (Project Director: May 2021 to November 2023)
Michelle Seiler (Project Director: November 2023 to present)

Archival work and public programming on the history and culture of Central Oregon, focusing on the Plateau tribes in the region.

This project will position the High Desert Museum and Museum At Warm Springs to continue core humanities work that is sustaining our region’s Native based cultural infrastructure. As we emerge from the pandemic, now more than ever, it is important to have strong cultural institutions and resources that can help shape our community’s new normal. With Native partners, we will use our collections to support public programming that will increase awareness of the Plateau Indigenous worldview, promote greater understanding of our shared humanity, and advocate for a more inclusive community. Specific activities include transforming how the High Desert Museum structures and interprets the collection of Plateau Indian material culture in its care and cataloguing and digitizing the Museum At Warm Springs’s collection and archives to support K-12 curriculum. By advancing this collaborative work, this project will have a significant and ongoing impact on our region’s cultural infrastructure.