Bill Holm Center Projects
The Bill Holm Center is currently engaged in several projects that will further its mission to establish a globally accessible learning center at the Burke Museum, promote scholarly research on Northwest Coast Native art, increase Native and public access to research resources, and foster appreciation and understanding of Native art of the Pacific Northwest Coast. These projects are funded by grants and private donations. Click here to learn more about how you can help support projects like these.
Current Projects
Franz Boas Film
The Bill Holm Center intends to publish in digital form (DVD) The Kwakiutl of British Columbia, a Documentary by Franz Boas (1930) as Visual Fieldnotes from Fort Rupert: Studies of Kwakiutl Dance and Movement by Franz Boas.
In the Spirit of the Ancestors
Available Fall 2013! The first in the new Bill Holm Center Publication Series on Native Art of the Pacific Northwest, In the Spirit of the Ancestors: Contemporary Northwest Coast Art at the Burke Museum (Wright and Bunn-Marcuse, eds).
Ongoing Projects
Skidegate Haida Model Houses & Poles
In 1892, at least seventeen Haida carvers were commissioned to carve a model of their village of Skidegate, British Columbia, on Haida Gwaii for the World's Columbian Exposition (WCE) in Chicago, Illinois.
The Enduring Power Of Totem Poles
In the 2003, the Burke Museum had an exhibit entitled Out of the Silence: The Enduring Power of Totem Poles. The Bill Holm Center received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to create a Web site based on this exhibit.
Digital Imaging Project
The Ethnology department of the Burke Museum has made images of its Northwest Coast (and other ethnology collections) available online, and we encourage researchers to access this resource.
The return of the Tongass Sea Lion
Shortly after the Harriman Expedition in 1899, a group of Seattle businessmen, sponsored by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and the Seattle Post Intelligencer, went to Alaska intent on acquiring a totem pole for the city.
Past Projects
The return of the Teikweidi grizzly bear house posts
In July 2001, the Burke Museum along with four other museums returned the eight poles and the house front to the Saanykwaan, the people of Cape Fox.
New house posts by Nathan and Stephen Jackson
A new grizzly bear house post, carved by Tlingit Master Carver, Nathan Jackson, was installed in the galleries of the Burke Museum on Saturday, August 27th, 2005.
Bill Holm and Robin.K.Wright Slide Collections
This analog videodisk with 25,000 images from the research slide collections of Bill Holm and Robin K. Wright is one of the largest visual records of Northwest Regional Indian art in the world.