Q: Do you have to acknowledge a mistake to fix it? Or is it easier to erase an error and start from scratch? Should we examine our missteps before we take another? Asking for a friend…
A: Those are not the kind of existential questions a curator necessarily has to ponder. But, in my unique role as Five Oaks Museum’s first Guest Curator, I was tasked with reframing a preexisting exhibition on the Kalapuyan people of Oregon. In May 2019, museum co-directors Molly Alloy and Nathanael Andreini invited me to view the original exhibition. At the time, they were considering junking the entire thing… and wondering???—???was the exhibition outdated, or too problematic?