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Exhibition Starter Kit: Know Your Treaty

President Obama greets a young Native American child participating in an event

Create a local exhibition with help from the Smithsonian!

The Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street (MoMS) is pleased to announce this call for applications to select ten organizations for Exhibition Starter Kit: Know Your Treaty.

Exhibition Starter Kit: Know Your Treaty provides guidance for developing your own exhibition about treaties and treaty negotiations that have affected your local area, utilizing the Smithsonian Institution-provided framework. The project is a hands-on opportunity for local cultural professionals to learn about the exhibition development process used by the Museum on Main Street program. The Smithsonian’s curatorial framework for the exhibition is to be further developed by your local community using your local historical images, art and artifacts, video clips and oral histories. The resulting exhibition will explore the relationships between Native Nations and the United States, including the legacy of US–American Indian diplomacy from the colonial period through present day. Please note that no on-site Smithsonian and/or Museum on Main Street programming or training is offered with this project.

Through the Native Community Engagement Grant awards, this program uniquely requires venues to collaborate with Native Scholars and provide a letter of support from a Native Nation. Through the award of this Grant, we hope to foster a supportive environment between your venue and Indigenous peoples to create a respectful and mutually beneficial path forward for engagement, partnership, and the creation of your exhibition.

Want to create a long-term local exhibition in association with the Smithsonian? Exhibition Starter Kit: Know Your Treaty  offers an opportunity for prior Museum on Main Street hosts and other rural cultural organizations to apply for this exciting collaboration!

Museum on Main Street is accepting applications through January 30th, 2025.  Nonprofit and government-affiliated organizations interested in being part of Exhibition Starter Kit: Know Your Treaty are invited to apply. Host venue selections for ten venues to join are made on a rolling basis.

For additional information and application instructions, download the application package.