Email us at [email protected].

Beginning in 1994, eleven resolutions are presented and unanimously passed by EBCI Tribal Council to construct a collections facility housing objects of cultural patrimony.

The Museum opens a new, updated exhibit, an immersive experience developed in collaboration with Disney Imagineers using state-of-the-art technology.

EBCI Land Exchange Act of 2003 passes and Tribe exchanges 218 acres with the National Park Service (NPS) for the National Park Service’s 143-acre Ravensford property, where a new Cherokee Central Schools campus is built. The Tribe enters a Memorandum of Agreement with NPS, agreeing to build a collections facility to house archaeological artifacts associated with digs on the site.

MotCP Board of Directors hires new Executive Director, Shana Bushyhead Condill (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), with the priority task of updating the Museum’s main exhibition to replace broken and outdated technology and tell the Cherokee story from a Cherokee perspective.

The process of developing a new exhibition by and for Cherokee people begins. MotCP staff reach out to enrolled members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians form a community committee. Over the course of three charettes, committee members discuss how their Tribal museum could be a resource for their families and discuss topics and themes they’d like to see represented in exhibitions.

MotCP conducts its first known inventory of collections guided by the EBCI Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO). After funerary and culturally sensitive objects are identified and removed from display, MotCP launches the art intervention Disruption, inviting Cherokee artists to respond by filling the empty cases with contemporary art.

Museum representatives and board members conduct research and comparison visits to museums, collections housing, and cultural heritage centers, including sites in Cherokee Nation, Chickasaw Nation, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, First Americans Museum, International African American Museum, and Museum of the American West.

MotCP forms a cohort of Native artists including visual artists, traditional artisans, filmmakers, fashion designers, musicians, and graphic designers. During multi-day charettes, participants consider the design and aesthetics of a museum by and for Cherokee people.

EBCI Tribal Council approves MotCP as project manager of the dormant EBCI collections facility project, expanding the scope to include flex space for THPO and EBCI Natural Resources staff, community spaces, a water garden, and a seed bank. Council sets aside a plot of land for the building. A Land Use Permit is issued in July 2022.

MotCP contracts with architects Hickok Cole to create conceptual designs for the collections facility and updated museum. Cumming Group is hired to project manage.

Museum of the Cherokee People holds Community Listening Sessions at each community club on the Qualla Boundary and in surrounding Cherokee communities. Over dinner with Museum staff and board members, community members shared their ideas for the Museum’s public facility and exhibitions. Sessions are held at the Steven Youngdeer American Legion Post 47 to ensure feedback from veterans and servicepeople of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is received.

MotCP begins consulting with Atlanta Botanical Gardens as it plans for its collections facility seed bank.

MotCP distributes a community survey at the annual Cherokee Indian Fair and launches an accessible community feedback form on its website for Tribal members living off-Boundary.

MotCP holds a community listening session at the Museum to review conceptual drawings for the public facility and offsite collections facility. Hickok Cole architects are in attendance to give community members the opportunity to ask questions directly share their input.

S&ME issue environmental report on the Museum’s current facility. The assessment reveals extensive needs and threats, including mold damage to collections and hazards to staff and guests.

MotCP meets with EBCI leadership about collections building and provides financing recommendations and a site recommendation. $300,000 of the Tribe’s capital budget is allocated toward schematic design.

EBCI Planning Board unanimously reaffirms the collections facility site.

MotCP brings resolution to reaffirm the site to EBCI Tribal Council; resolution passes.

MotCP is targeting the end of 2026 to break ground on the collections facility.