While the museum is not a collections and research-based museum, it has substantial offerings in terms of exhibitions and programming. Particular highlights this fall include a selection of 1923 films about daily Zuni life, and the Zuni map-art collection, which challenges notions of what maps are.

“The map art recently returned from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City,” Enote said. “It’s a rare thing for a small tribal museum to have an exhibition at a world-class facility with 4 to 6 million visitors per year. And it will continue to travel; it’s a jump ball right now for where it goes next. Denver, Los Angeles, the Netherlands… there are a lot of requests.”

The collection comprises 32 oil, acrylic and watercolor paintings that tell unique, evocative stories about the Zuni world. Visitors will be able to view U.S. Geological Survey maps of the same areas and compare them to the artists’ renditions.

“We always had maps, but over the last 500 years, we’ve been remapped with names that are foreign to us,” Enote said. “Modern maps may even omit our presence. So these Zuni maps show that there are different ways of looking at the same thing, the same place. Guests will leave with this understanding, again, that there are different knowledge systems.”

It all goes back to the A:shiwi A:wan Museum’s role as a contact zone.       

“Our first audience is the Zuni people, but visitors are always welcome,” Enote said. “Many tribal museums are ‘come learn about us,’ but our museum is designed to first serve us. That means visitors will feel like they’re getting a special experience of Zuni, one they wouldn’t get elsewhere. When they come here, they’ll find Zunis in silent conversation with the items, and in actual conversation with family members. Visitors perceive that, and they might become part of that conversation.”