Exhibition Opening!

Join us for the Grand Opening of the highly anticipated exhibtion Makowa: The Worlds Above Us. Fun family activities all day, arts and crafts, and gallery tours. 

Look up. What do you see? From radio astronomy to solstice calendars, Indigenous peoples look to the sky for timing, meaning, and beauty. Makowa: The Worlds Above Us juxtaposes ways of seeing, noticing, and understanding the skies and the beings in them. Told through stories of an ever-changing world, the exhibition connects science, stories, and observations.  For Indigenous peoples of the Southwest, observing the sky brings joy, information, and a connection to the worlds above us. 

Makowa takes an expansive view of the worlds above: constellations, birds, eclipses, clouds, astronauts, and more, over day and night and throughout the seasons and eras. The exhibit will juxtapose artistic renderings of celestial events with cutting-edge telescopic imaging. It will draw together stories about how stars came to be where they are and how stars help people know where they are. The exhibit asks us to participate in a long lineage of observers who have made sense of the worlds above us. 

Night photography, pottery, textiles, interviews, and maps are among the exhibit components. A small plantarium experience will allow visitors to immerse themselves in a changing sky. Interviews will highlight the first Indigenous astronaut John Harrington (Chickasaw), along with a range of Indigenous astrophysicists, skywatchers, and artists. 

Throughout the exhibition, we ask the questions: What do you see? What are the stories? What are the sciences? Through these lenses, traditional ecological knowledge, storytelling, art, physics, and meaning come into conversation. Join us to find your own answers in the worlds above us.