Bosque Redondo Memorial in Ft. Sumner, New Mexico commemorates the site where in the 1860s 10,000 native people — Navajo/Diné and Mescalero Apache/Ndé — were forcibly marched to the banks of the Pecos River and kept in a concentration camp for five years by the U.S. military. Bryan Potter Design was principal creative and production designer for a 7,000 square foot exhibit to present the story of the pre-contact, forced march, internment and aftermath of this traumatic episode in indigenous (and United States) history. The exhibit features touchscreen interactives, projected video, custom sound design, an interpretive light installation, as well as traditional casework, wall graphics and interpretive panels.
Learn more about this exhibit and New Mexico Historic Sites, including a virtual walkthrough, here. Listen to a podcast with Manuelito Wheeler, director of the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, AZ and Aaron Roth, historic site manager, Fort Sumner Historic Site, talking about the historic significance of Bosque Redondo and the challenges of presenting interpretation at sites of human atrocities.
