Exhibition by the House of Tears Carvers of the Lummi Nation and The Natural History Museum

@ The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, October 2017 – March 2018

Kwel Hoy’: We Draw the Line is a cross-country tour, traveling museum exhibition, and series of public programs uplifting Indigenous leadership in struggles to protect water, land, and our collective future.

For the last five years, the House of Tears Carvers and members of the Lummi Nation have traveled across North America with a totem pole to raise awareness about threats to the environment and public health. As the pole travels, it draws a line between dispersed but connected concerns, and helps to build an unprecedented alliance of tribal and non-tribal communities as they stand together to advocate for a sustainable relationship between humanity and the natural world.

In this exhibition, the totem pole enters a museum for the first time, where it has been paired with a collection of artifacts collected along the route of the Totem Pole Journey. Charged with the stories of resilience they have picked up on their journey across the country, they connect the museum—and the museum public—to the living universe in which they are enmeshed.

Linking the museum in a chain of solidarity with Indigenous Peoples across the country, this exhibition stands as a powerful bridge between the museum of natural history and the communities that are working hardest, in the words of the American Alliance of Museums’ Code of Ethics, “to foster an informed appreciation of the rich and diverse world we have inherited….[and to] preserve that inheritance for posterity.”

During the 6 months the exhibition is on display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, a series of public screenings, discussions, workshops and tours with The Natural History Museum’s mobile museum bus will explore local efforts to protect the environment, public health, and local cultures — connecting history to the present, and the museum to the world beyond its walls.

About The Natural History Museum

Established in 2014, The Natural History Museum is mobile and pop-up museum initiated by Not An Alternative, a collective of artists, scientists and scholars. Named in The New York Times and ArtNet’s “Best in Art in 2015” round-ups, the group’s work has been widely exhibited in museums nationally and internationally.

About the Lummi Nation

The Lummi, also known as Lhaq’temish, or People of the Sea, are the original inhabitants of Washington’s northernmost coast and southern British Columbia. 

Booking Inquiries

For more information about booking this exhibition at your venue please email info {at} thenaturalhistorymuseum.org.