NONAM's collection includes Indigenous art and items spanning four centuries. In addition to feather bonnets, pipes and tomahawks, their highlights include a painted wapiti robe of the Pawnee and the hand-coloured copper engravings by the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer. A very well-preserved hunting coat of the Naskapi from around 1700 is considered a special rarity.
Today, the collection focuses on contemporary Indigenous art from Canada and the USA.
Discover in our collection database what is currently not on display in the exhibitions. The data sets are continuously processed and are work-in-progress. We look forward to your suggestions, questions and comments.
According to ICOM's ethical guidelines, it is part of the due diligence of museums to determine the provenance of the collection holdings as completely as possible. Provenance research examines the circumstances of the acquisition or change of ownership of individual objects or groups of objects. Particular attention is paid to existing contexts of injustice or power imbalances, such as during National Socialism and in colonial contexts. Sensitive collections such as human remains, grave goods or ceremonial artefacts are examined. The cultural significance of the objects at the time of collection and today is to be determined together with the relevant communities of origin and succession and the future handling of them is to be clarified.
NONAM is a co-signatory of the Heidelberg Statement "Decolonisation requires dialogue, expertise and support", which was adopted at the 2019 Annual Conference of the Directors of Ethnological Museums in German-speaking Countries. This advocates the greatest possible degree of transparency in dealing with the history and content of the collections, with cooperative provenance research as a general standard.
NONAM conducted a provenance research project funded by the Federal Office of Culture (FOC) for the period 2023–2024.
The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign Indigenous nation with a territory in the northeastern part of the state of Arizona. Hopi cultural items, especially the Katsina figures or tithu, have been popular collector's items since the end of the 19th century and have repeatedly been the subject of art-historical and cultural studies research. For many Hopi, these items are part of a cosmology in which spirituality, ecology and community are closely intertwined.
As part of the project, the complete Hopi collection at NONAM has been digitally recorded, documented and made accessible. With around 400 inventory numbers, it forms a regional focal point of the museum's collection. The items come from a range of different collection contexts.
In collaboration with representatives of the Hopi Tribe, researchers, museum professionals, collectors and other groups, the provenances of the items were researched, and their different levels of meaning were established in the sense of a diversity of perspectives. The focus was on treating the items with respect and maintaining and expanding the network of relationships.
The respectful exchange with experts from the Hopi Tribe made it possible to clarify important questions about the Hopi collection and to determine the appropriate next steps regarding the items. The collaboration with the Hopi Tribe will continue after the end of the project.
NONAM was involved in a provenance research project funded by the Federal Office of Culture (FOC) for the period 2021–2022.
The collection of the NONAM North America Native Museum goes back to the private collection of Gottfried Hotz (1901–1977), a teacher from Zurich. As part of the project, which is funded by the Federal Office of Culture (FOC), provenance research was carried out in this part of the collection, the holdings were digitally recorded and made available online.
Gottfried Hotz's interest in the Indigenous cultures of North America and his personal passion for collecting were in the foreground. Between 1920 and 1976, he acquired objects from ethnographic and art dealers, galleries, auction houses, Indigenous artists, showmen of "Indian" circus show troupes, and ethnographic museums in Europe and North America. Together with his wife Martha, he undertook two privately financed collection trips to the USA and Canada in 1963 and 1968 and acquired further objects, including those of Indigenous people on reservation areas.
From today's perspective, the Hotz Collection contains most of the historically and culturally sensitive holdings within the NONAM Collection, the circumstances of which need to be examined more closely regarding colonial and other contexts of injustice. It is also very important to NONAM to enter into dialogue with the relevant communities of origin and interest groups about the future handling of culturally significant objects.
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