Juan Joel Arce is a still life photographer with a BFA in Photography from Parsons the New School for Design. Arce began his career digitizing the collections of the Smithsonian, MoMA, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Currently, Arce serves as Executive Director of GRID Gallery, a 501(c)3 non-profit which champions the work of QTBIPOC Photographers, empowering them with educational and professional development opportunities. Juan photographed and created all of the object images used throughout this exhibition.

Jessica Nelson is a historical archaeologist, with a PhD in anthropology. As Curatorial Assistant at the HMA, she works primarily in collections care, and much of this work takes the form of cataloging, inventorying, and rehousing initiatives. To raise the profile of this type of care, she developed a digital exhibition Engaging the Americas, and spearheaded the development this exhibit, co-creating much of the content in this exhibit.


Jennie Smithken-Lindsay is an art historian, with MA degrees in medieval studies and art history. As a collections assistant, she inventories, rehouses, and cares for the collections. She is also a member of the Social Media committee, helping to create content that educates and informs our audience about the Haffenreffer’s activities and collections. Jennie co-created much of the content in this exhibit.


Jen Wicoff is a physical anthropologist with over 20 years of experience in collections management. As Collections Manager & Registrar, Jen heads the Collections Team with pride, coordinating loans, overseeing the database, and planning for our move. Jen also chairs the Collections and Emergency and Risk Management Committees, working with her colleagues to grow the collections and ensure their safety. She oversaw and guided this project from start to finish and helps to contextualize this exhibit.

Acknowledgements

In addition to the HMA Collections Team members listed here, important contributions to this exhibition were made by many others. We wish to thank: Thierry Gentis, HMA's Head Curator, for his insight throughout the project; Tyrrell Tapaha for sharing their insight into Diné weavings so generously; Sháńdíín Brown for bringing Tyrrell to the HMA for a visit and for sharing her own insights into Diné weavings and iconography; Mary Walker for sharing her knowledge and images of Navajo weavings; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation whose Transforming the Haffenreffer Grant supported this project by funding collections staff positions at the museum; and the many researchers, artists, collectors, and descendant community members quoted throughout this exhibit for sharing their knowledge with the HMA.