For several years, MNA researchers and associates have been studying the mural and pottery paintings of Hopi and other Pueblos, with an eye toward developing a traveling exhibit. The project, formerly known as the Southwest Mural Project, was put on hold in 2003 while the MNA board reviewed the project’s progress and worked to obtain a memorandum of understanding with the Hopi Tribe. Last year, the Rockefeller Foundation granted MNA the opportunity to reconfigure these projects and under the guidance of Dr. Kelley Hays-Gilpin, they have been moving ahead at a rapid pace.

MNA and the Hopi Tribe signed the MOU in March of 2005 which, in part, allowed the project to move forward. At the suggestion of the director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, the redesigned project was named the Hopi Iconography Project, with a clearly defined purpose to develop an exhibit, publications, and educational resources in consultation with Hopi elders, artists, linguists, and other tribal advisors.

The final name of the actual exhibit will soon be determined. The new exhibit will open in MNA’s own galleries by 2008 and possibly travel to other venues.

The exhibit will explain key aspects of the Hopi World to Euroamerican and Native American visitors. Topics may include farming, ecology, history, cosmology, and the relationship of traditional arts and crafts to Hopi identity and individual lives. It will also help visitors understand why certain aspects of landscape are sacred to the Hopi by explaining how the Hopi world is organized and what the Hopi people value.

Dr. Kelley Hays-Gilpin, an associate professor of anthropology at NAU, was hired at the request of the Hopi Tribe to serve as guest curator. She is an expert in prehistoric Puebloan pottery and specializes in cross-media comparison, including murals, textiles, basketry, and rock art. She is joined by Stewart Koyiyumptewa, an archivist and specialist in oral history at the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, Dr. Lea S. McChesney, a socio-cultural anthropologist specializing in Hopi material culture, and Gloria Lomahaftewa, a new MNA staff member who will consult on all phases of the exhibit and ultimately serve as co-curator in the later phases.

In consultation with the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, 15 men and women from most of the 12 Hopi villages and a variety of different clans have been selected to serve as a Hopi advisory team.

Work continues with some of the original academic team of researchers, including: Emory Sekaquaptewa (Hopi linguist), Dorothy Washburn (archaeologist), Steven LeBlanc (archaeologist and collections director, Harvard Peabody Museum), Michael Kabotie (Hopi artist), Delbridge Honanie (Hopi artist), Karl Taube (archaeologist, iconographer, UC Riverside), Polly Schaasfma (rock art specialist), Elizabeth Newsome (art historian, UC San Diego), Larry Loendorf (archaeologist and rock art specialist, New Mexico State University), and Eric Polingyouma (Hopi cultural historian), and Carolyn O'Bagy Davis (independent scholar).