Two Sessions for MAAM Building Museums 2025 Highlights Indigenous Collaborations
Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums’s Building Museums™ is a national symposium on the process, promise, and pitfalls of planning and managing museum building projects. This year’s event features Reed Hilderbrand principals presenting projects where collaboration with Indigenous communities was essential to the planning and design of new cultural institutions.
Join us March 5-7 in St. Louis, MO, for Building Museums™ 2025.
Session 3D: Envisioning the Perry Center: Honoring Indigenous Heritage Through Design and Collaboration at Shelburne Museum Thursday, March 6, 3:15 pm-4:30 pm Featuring Elizabeth Randall, Principal and Practice Director, Reed Hilderbrand in conversation with Steven Gerrard, Principal, Annum Architects; Thomas Denenberg, Director, Shelburne Museum; and Matthew Hickey, Partner, Two Row Architect
Located in Vermont’s Lake Champlain Valley, Shelburne Museum is the largest art and history museum in northern New England and a foremost public resource for visual art and material culture. Its 45-acre campus comprises 39 buildings, 25 of which are historic and were relocated to the Museum. A new building will be constructed in 2025, devoted to the exhibition and stewardship of the Perry Collection, over 200 Native American masterworks predominately from Plains, Prairie, and Southwest peoples, adding to the Native American materials already stewarded by Shelburne Museum. The Perry Center represents a significant initiative to collaborate with Indigenous nations, scholars and culture bearers to present a model of stewardship for Indigenous creative culture and presentation to a broader audience.
Session 4A: Making Time, Building Trust: Tekαkαpimək Visitor Contact Station’s Celebration of Wabanaki Cultural Knowledge at Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument Friday, March 7, 10:00 am-11:15 am Featuring John Grove, Principal and Partner, Reed Hilderbrand in conversation with Gary Stern, Owners Representative, Elliotsville Foundation; Jennifer Sapiel Neptune, Artist and Lead Exhibits Writer at Tekαkαpimək, Penobscot Nation; Jane Beattie, Principal Interpretive Planner, Tuhura Communications; Todd Saunders, Saunders Architecture; and Shaun Gotterbarn, Alisberg Parker Architects
Situated in the present and traditional homeland of the Penobscot Nation, Tekαkαpimək Contact Station is a stunning 7,900 square-foot building and 23-acre landscape atop Lookout Mountain in Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. This session celebrates the intercultural and interdisciplinary process behind its creation. Tekαkαpimək — pronounced deh gah-gah bee mook, Penobscot for “as far as one can see” — arose from a partnership between a Wabanaki Advisory Board and Elliotsville Foundation, in consultation with the National Park Service. Tekαkαpimək is a work of collaborative design and construction, intentionally imbued with Wabanaki knowledge.
Design team members will reflect on Tekαkαpimək’s realization. In 2019, Elliotsville Foundation, which gifted monument lands to the United States, engaged members of the Wabanaki Confederacy - Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, Mi’kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe (Sipayik and Motahkomikuk), and Penobscot Nation. A feedback session about an initial architectural concept burgeoned into five years of exchanging ideas and stories that informed design, interpretive themes, and creative execution. Commissioned works by Wabanaki writers and artists are integrated throughout the building, landscape architecture, and exhibitions. Bold outcomes reflect trust built among native and non-native communities, deepening the creative process and lifting collective success.