Maxwell Museum Blog
Update on Covid-19 exhibition
The online exhibition Covid-19: Concepts of Sickness and Wellness is growing with new content added almost every day. In the section on “Sickness,” in addition to the "Scientific Modeling" with text by independent curator Mimi Roberts and content linked from the Santa Fe Institute, is a new chapter about disease and colonial contact in the American Southwest written by Maxwell Director Carla Sinopoli. Forthcoming is a chapter about good energy and bad energy and Navajo health, by Navajo Times reporter Donovan Quintero, and a chapter about archeological sleuthing and death in Albuquerque by Senior Collections Manager for Archaeology Karen Price and her graduate students.
In the Wellness section is an interview with Anishinaabe author and educator Karen Pheasant Neganigwane, about the Jingle dress dance - additional interview content is upcoming regarding healing dance, specifically the Grass Dance of the Plains. There is also a new chapter on the traditional healing practice of Curanderismo, with introductory text by Dr. Estevan Rael-Gálvez a writer and former State Historian of New Mexico. Check back regularly and be surprised by what you find, as we are hoping that all the various angles we are taking to explore these issues, provides information, perspective and some comfort in these changing and difficult times.
If you would like to contribute your story about your experience in this pandemic, send a short essay of about 150 words, accompanied by an image, to dromanek@unm.edu, and be a part of this exhibition.
Images from top:
COVID-19
Disapative Structure
Karen Pheasont=Neganigwane in her Jingle dress at the 2007 National Powwow in Washington, DC. Photo: Katherine Fogden
Curandero Juaquin Gomez sings incantations and prayers. Photograph Sterling Trantham