Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smithsonian Center for Folklife & Cultural Heritage

A man with short white hair, moustache, and glasses plays a wooden flute. Behind him, slightly out of focus, is a young woman with long dark hair in a bun and a black tank top.

With Birchbark and Breath, Sierra and Hawk Henries Bring Intergenerational Artistry to the ‘Dawnland’

Portrait-Roen-Kahalewai-Hufford-2023-wkapa-adjhires.jpg

For Hawaiian Artist Roen Hufford, Making Kapa Bark Cloth Embodies an Exchange with Nature and a Way of Life

Film still of an elder woman and a young man, both in wheelchairs, facing each other in conversation and smiling in a warmly lit living room. A man sits to the side, next to a laptop, also smiling.

A Glimpse at 'The Ride Ahead' and a More Inclusive Future With Filmmaker Samuel Habib

A man wearing glasses, white headwrap, and apron holds a metal object to a flame in a forge, sparks flying toward the stone walls.

The Reappearing Art of Metalworking in Mukhrani, Georgia

A collection of twelve custom-made, metallic signs is displayed against a dark background. The signs are arranged in three rows of four. The signs are a mix of gold and silver colors with various fonts and designs.

Indonesian Artists of SWEDA Build a Brand—with a Silver Lining

A woman with long dark hair and dark outfit plays a white electric guitar on a dimly blue lit stage. She and her guitar are slightly blurry.

A Q&A With Musician Gretchen Gonzales Davidson on Arts and Advocacy

alt="An elder woman with dark skin and short white hair holds up a framed twelve-inch gold record, smiling. Behind her is a seated crowd under a festival tent."

A Century of Ella Jenkins: Tributes to the First Lady of Children’s Music

Two men wearing traditional feathered headdresses stand in front of two microphones, singing and playing hand drums.

Dennis Zotigh Is a Man of Many Talents, Many Tribes

A row of people lines up playing flutes. Most are young students, and in the middle is an older man with a long gray braid.

A Lesson About North American Indigenous Flute and Authenticity

Carolyn Smith collecting beargrass in Klamath National Forest, 2015. For beargrass to be supple enough for weavers to use in their baskets, it needs to be burned annually. Ideally, it is burned in an intentionally set cultural fire, where only the tops are burned, leaving the roots intact. Prescribed fires in the Klamath National Forest are few and far between, so weavers “follow the smoke” and gather, when they can, after wildfires sweep through the landscape. (Photo courtesy of Carolyn Smith)

How Indigenous Ecological Knowledge Offers Solutions to California’s Wildfires

Artyom Ghazaryan in his studio in Yeghegnadzor. (Photo by Narek Harutyunyan, My Armenia Program)

The Spirit Across Regions: Armenia from the Local Perspective

Lisa Marie Thalhammer holds her original LOVE poster with her mural in the background. (Photo by Grant Langford)

This D.C. Muralist Finds Pride and Power in Public Art

Elexia Alleyne. Photo courtesy of the artist

Coming of Age in Poetry: An Interview with Elexia Alleyne

Elizabeth Acevedo (Photo by Jonathan B. Tucker)

How Poet Elizabeth Acevedo Brings Sacred Monsters to Life

(Photo courtesy of Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles)

The Quarter-Century Reign of Mariachi Reyna

Vahagn working on a clay jug. (Photo by Narek Harutyunyan, My Armenia Program)

The Potter's Wheel: An Inexhaustible Source of Energy

Photo courtesy of Alicia D. Williams

How Alicia D. Williams Is Reviving Storytelling for Black Children

Barbara Dane with the Chambers Brothers at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. (Photo by Diana Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives)

How Barbara Dane Carries a Proud Tradition of Singing Truth to Power

Categories
Archive