SEATTLE, Wash. — The Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture is pleased to announce it has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Grants for Arts Projects award of $50,000. This grant will support the museum’s upcoming exhibition, Woven in Wool: The Rebirth of Traditional Coast Salish Regalia.
“The NEA funding for the Woven in Wool exhibition will enable us to create an experience for visitors that illustrates the power of weavings emerging from more than a thousand years of tradition among Coast Salish peoples in the Pacific Northwest,” said Gabriela Chavarria, executive director of the Burke Museum. “We’re excited to share these traditions, and modern-day weavings, with our communities.”
The NEA will award 1,135 Grants for Arts Projects awards totaling more than $37 million as part of its second round of fiscal year 2024 grants.
“Projects like Woven in Wool exemplify the creativity and care with which communities are telling their stories, creating connection, and responding to challenges and opportunities in their communities — all through the arts,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, Ph.D. “So many aspects of our communities, such as cultural vitality, health and wellbeing, infrastructure, and the economy are advanced and improved through investments in art and design, and the National Endowment for the Arts is committed to ensuring people across the country benefit.”
Woven in Wool is a joint project of 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.
For more information about the Burke Museum, visit burkemuseum.org.
For more information on other projects included in the NEA’s grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.
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Joanne Matsusaka
About the Burke
The Burke is the Washington State Museum of Natural History and Culture. The Burke is an active research museum that cares for 18 million geology, biology and cultural objects from Washington state and around the world, preserving natural and cultural history and generating new discoveries. Founded in 1885 and designated the State Museum in 1899, the Burke Museum is the oldest public museum in Washington and is a part of the University of Washington.
