The School of Art + Art History + Design is pleased to announce that Associate Professor of Art History Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) project grant of $150,000 in support of her collaboratively curated exhibition Woven in Wool at the Burke Museum developed in partnership with the Coast Salish Wool Weaving Center.
In August 2024, NEH announced $37.5 million for 240 Humanities projects nationwide. Grant awards support the creation of scholarly hubs for AI research, new nonfiction books, documentaries, podcasts, exhibitions, collaborative and individual humanities research, and enrichment programs for educators.
Woven in Wool is a joint project of the Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Native Art at the Burke Museum and the Coast Salish Wool Weaving Center. In its interpretive and curatorial approach, the exhibition empowers and privileges the voices and knowledge of Salish weavers, acknowledging Native communities as the experts on their own history. The exhibition opens in May 2025 and runs through November.
About Grant Recipient
Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, PhD, is the Curator of Northwest Native Art and Director of the Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Native Art at the Burke Museum, and Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Washington. Her most recent book is Unsettling Native Art Histories on the Northwest Coast with Aldona Jonaitis (2020). Her other recent publications focus on regalia and other creations by women artists on the Northwest Coast. In her role as curator, she collaborates with First Nations communities and artists to identify research priorities and activate the Burke Museum’s holdings in ways that are responsive to cultural revitalization efforts.
About the Bill Holm Center
Established in 2003, the Bill Holm Center is a globally accessible learning center for the study of Native arts of the Northwest at the Burke Museum. The Center honors Bill Holm’s remarkable career and continues his legacy of sharing the resources of the Burke Museum with people and communities across the globe. Through research grants, public outreach, online resources, and publications the Bill Holm Center Supports artists and communities connecting with their cultural heritage, promotes research and publications on Northwest Native art, facilitates access to cultural resources at the University of Washington, and fosters appreciation and understanding of Native arts and cultures of the Pacific Northwest. For more information about the Bill Holm Center, visit burkemuseum.org.
For more information on other projects included in the NEH grant announcement, visit neh.gov/news.