New exhibit opens at Bosque Redondo Memorial

The New Mexico Department of Historic Sites announced the grand opening of the exhibit titled "Bosque Redondo: A Place of Suffering... A Place of Survival" on May 28.

The exhibit was a "collaboration with tribal partners that grapples with the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation," according to a news release from the New Mexico Historic Sites Department.

The exhibit features historical photographs, artifacts, oral histories and interactive and reflective spaces.

"The interpretive exhibition uniquely incorporates the outside world to the inside gallery using skylights and fiberoptic light bundles. There are more than 10,000 light bundles, illuminated by natural light, each one representing a Diné or Ndé individual who was forced to march to the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation," the news release stated.

The reservation — opened in the 1860s — was the result of forced removal of the Diné and Ndé people by the U.S. Army from native lands in Arizona to New Mexico. According to the New Mexico Historic Sites Department, the forced march, known as the Long Walk, by the of over 50 groups along 300 miles to the reservation took three years and cost thousands of lives.

The exhibit explores the "brutality and perseverance of their life on reservation," through a series of XXXX

The permanent exhibit is located at the Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner Historic Site.

The public is invited to participate in several opening day events for which admission fees have been waived.

From 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. cultural dance performances are scheduled.

Lunch will be provided free of charge for the first 500 guests attending from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Other food vendors will also be available.

At 3 p.m. a live auction of Navajo rug and Native American art is scheduled.

Keynote speakers will have the floor between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.

As part of its ongoing effort to document and share the history of the  Diné and Ndé, New Mexico Historic Sites offers the public access to an archive of oral histories and other media at archive-bosqueredondomemorial.nmhistoricsites.org. 

Jessica Onsurez can be reached at jonsurez@gannett.com, @JussGREAT on Twitter at by phone at 575-628-5531.