Reflection - Native American History Museum

The highest level of the Native American History Museum had some of the trippiest museum exhibits I've ever been to. The glares were blinding in certain exhibits. There was this one exhibit that was behind a convex glass case. The convex glass caused there to be a hazy projection of 2 or 3 Native Americans that seemed somewhat three-dimensional. At first, we thought our eyes were playing tricks on us (hence the trippiness) but then we realized that with a museum of this scale, thought was most likely put into every dollar spent. Perhaps, the musuem builders were trying to perform the idea that the Native Americans are still part of our society today however their culture is not as strong (hence the hazy rather than the vivid projection). I remembered the presentation for the 5-year olds and what the tour guide said. He was talking about how Pueblo's shop in grocery stores and do what one would expect "regular" people to do. This could be an example as to how traditional Native American customs are becoming more hazy.

I was thinking about how this projection could be entirely accidental and I could just be attempting to explain something that isn't really seeking explanation. Even still, it caused me to think about how the Native American culutre is not only historically represented, but also represented today.

...On a side note, one thing PTJ mentioned was to think about what the circular room you first walk into represented. When i walked in I looked up and noticed the circular skylight. I immediately thought back to what I learned about Native Americans in elementary school. The teepees that the Native Americans lived in had a hole in the center so that the smoke from the campfire had somewhere to escape. Its so interesting to me how architectual aspects of a particular building representative of a culture cause one to remember certain aspects of said culture.