What is Local Contexts?

A non-profit organization that helps Indigenous communities regain cultural authority over their heritage collections and data.  

Why does this work matter to Newfields?

Newfields has been a leading institution when it comes to Open Access since first publishing the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s collection online in 2010. The Collection Portal has had a variety of iterations, complete with images, copywrite information, provenance and more—all free and easily accessible online for individual and scholarly use.  

This month, the Collections Portal launched several significant improvements that reassert Newfields as an Open Access leader in the cultural heritage sector.  

Working with Local Contexts to acknowledge indigenous cultural authority and give deference to concepts of intellectual property and ownership that differs from US copywrite law. This aligns with broader works with deaccessioning and is in line with holding Newfields to a high ethical standard of care. 

The work so far:

The journey to implementing Local Contexts as part of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields’ collections management practices started over five years ago. At that time staff began assessing the online presentation of the Indianapolis Museum of Art collections. This included research into how we could integrate more standardized tools for communicating copyright to the public like Rights Statements, Creative Commons, and Local Contexts. It became increasingly clear that rights management is more than just copyright and licensing and that collaborating with Indigenous communities is a core function of ethical collections stewardship.   

This work took a giant leap forward in 2022 when Newfields was awarded an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Museums for America grant for the project, Open and Integrated: Redesigning Newfields’ Online Collections. One of the goals of this project was to reassert Newfields as an Open Access leader in the cultural heritage sector. Since the launch of our prior collection site in 2015, numerous advancements in Open Access have made it easier for users to make independent and informed decisions on the allowed use and/or reuse of both collections data and images. Developing an integrated collections portal for Newfields’ art and historical collections has enabled us to expand our Open Access program and make digital surrogate downloads more readily available to users worldwide. 

In addition to standardizing copyright language and utilizing Rights Statements and Creative Commons with this IMLS grant, the Legal Affairs and Intellectual Property (LAIP) department at Newfields also implemented Local Contexts’ protocols on digital surrogates of Indigenous collections. Founded in 2010, Local Contexts is a nonprofit organization that hosts an online Hub to connect Indigenous communities and cultural institutions. Local Contexts also developed digital Traditional Knowledge and Biocultural Labels and Engagement, Disclosure, and Collections Care Notices to display Indigenous instructions in the modern digital environment. The organization promotes the repatriation of Indigenous knowledge and the reassertion of Indigenous authority over cultural heritage held in museums, libraries, archives, and universities. 

Newfields’ first step with Local Contexts was to create an institutional profile within their Hub. Next, we identified artworks in the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s collections, particularly those in the Native Arts of the Americas, African Art, and South Pacific collections, that needed the following Engagement and Disclosure Notices applied: Open to Collaborate, Attribution Incomplete, Traditional Knowledge, and Biocultural.  

Newfields’ public page in Local Contexts’ Hub Registry.

Cultural institutions can only add Notices to their collections; the application of Labels are at the discretion of Indigenous communities as a means of reclaiming their cultural authority. To apply these Notices, LAIP staff created Rights Records for each Engagement and Disclosure Notice in the Rights Module within our collections management system (CMS). Although we cannot apply Labels without community consultation, we proactively created Rights Records for each Label in anticipation of future collaborations. 

Our next step was to associate each applicable Notice to identified artworks within the Catalogue Module of our CMS. These Engagement and Disclosure Notices are now visible to Newfields’ staff within the CMS and to the public on our updated online collections portal. In deference to Indigenous rights and cultural authority, all artworks that have these associations have the title, icon, and an explanation of the Notices strategically inserted directly above the Artwork Details section in the online collections portal. It is our goal and hope that the public display of these Notices will highlight our willingness to collaborate with Indigenous communities. 

Individual artwork page in the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields’ online collection portal highlighting the location of Notices above the Artwork Details section.

We are proud of the work that has been accomplished to date, but this work is not done. We continue to learn and adapt every day in our efforts to be more ethical collection stewards. We have laid the groundwork by adding Local Contexts’ Notices and are now focused on the next phase: community consultations and applying community-identified Labels. To this end, on our Local Contexts Hub public account and our collections portal’s Provenance Research Local Contexts page, we are displaying the Open to Collaborate Notice and provide contact information for Indigenous community representatives to connect with Newfields’ staff and begin the consultation process.

Individual artwork page in the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields’ online collection portal highlighting the location of Notices above the Artwork Details section.

Newfields is committed to being a proactive partner in the fight for Indigenous data sovereignty and is humbled to be the first art museum in North America to implement Local Contexts’ Notices. LAIP staff regularly share their expertise and experience applying Notices to national and international professional organizations, cultural institutions, and Indigenous communities, including Local Contexts’ Technical Implementation and Cultural Institutions Working Groups. Local Contexts recently incorporated as an independent non-profit organization and instituted a reparative subscription model for its Hub to ensure Indigenous data sovereignty is brought to the fore of collections care. Newfields is leading the field in commitment to this work through its donation as the first Founding Supporter of Local Contexts and as a paid Hub subscriber. As Belinda Tate, The Melvin & Bren Simon Director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields perfectly encapsulates:  

The Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields honors the rich heritage of all cultures with deep respect and dignity. Through our support of Local Contexts, Newfields strengthens its commitment to Indigenous communities, NAGPRA compliance, and enriches our understanding of the objects in our care. By fostering this knowledge, we aim to educate and uplift our staff and the diverse communities we serve, promoting healing and unity.  

Open and Integrated: Redesigning Newfields’ Online Collections was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [MA-251861-OMS-22]. The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. 

Image Credit:
View of The Wild Birds Unlimited Pollinator Meadow in The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park at Newfields.