– Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. (Santayana)
– False culture brings degradation to human consciousness, pride and selfishness, colonization, discrimination and genocide of other nations.
True culture brings a new birth of consciousness, the revelation of a new path, and the spiritual fulfillment of mankind.
OBJECTIVES
The proposed project, the Monument-Museum of Native American Cultures (MMNAC), is centered on the spiritual cultures of the indigenous people of America. This monument will be erected in the memory of their ancestors who died for the freedom and love of their people and their cultures.
The MMNAC is our response to the deepest wishes of the majority of the Indigenous people of North America.
According to their spiritual mentors and Elders, their cultures and people are facing new and more insidious trials with more refined yet less obvious dangers. In order to face these challenges, they need to unite the spiritual, intellectual, and creative powers of all their people together to confront them.
The creation of the Monument – Museum as a new sacred place is our answer to these existing challenges and will inspire, encourage, and unify all the Indigenous people.
CHALLENGES
The world in which we live is ceasing to be humane. Enormous amounts of time, energy, and money are being spent on a path of destruction rather than on a path of life. The human and the natural in this world is degrading; spiritual culture is undergoing a great crisis, and with the development of economic, scientific, and technological progress, the destructive process only increases.
The progress of civilization has been the key factor in the destruction of the living environment, the desecration of the natural balance, and the violation of the biological, chemical, and genetic balance in human and other living beings. It has led to a new era of digital technologies and domination by artificial intelligence. Ingenious tools are being created to manipulate the human mind and life, putting human beings and their wills under complete control, and therefore, robbing them of their freedom in a new totalitarian slavery.
Globalization consists of the aggressive transplantation of mass culture, the negative transformation of historical, social, and moral values, as well as in the ousting and destruction of the religious and spiritual foundations of the ancient cultures and traditions of our ancestors. Calling itself a universal culture, it mixes everything in one global cauldron, erasing historical, religious, and national memory and destroying the faith and spiritual traditions of people and tribes.
By absorbing and distorting the spiritual and cultural values of the Indigenous ancestors, this pseudo-culture increases the distance between the ancient Indigenous cultures and young Indigenous people. This brings cynicism that aggravates and deepens the problem of the misunderstanding of important spiritual values of the ancestors. Ultimately, it destroys continuity between generations, breaking the passage of tribal, cultural, and religious traditions and beliefs from parents and grandparents to their children.
THE PROJECT’S GOALS
ARCPROSPECT International Foundation understands the relevance of contemporary problems. Therefore, the creation of the Monument-Museum is our answer to all the existing challenges that the indigenous people and their spiritual cultures face.
ARCPROSPECT International Foundation is a creative platform for the spiritual unification of creative forces that contribute to the creation of the Monument-Museum.
We seek the blessings, participation, and support of this project from the leaders of all the tribes.
We also strive to make each tribe’s most talented Indigenous anthropologists, writers, historians, artists, sculptors, artisans, museologists, designers, and volunteers involved in the creative process of this monumental project.
The project will feature artistic and philosophical studies expressed in the form of a conceptual thesis, as well as in the forms of architecture, interior design, and landscaping. In 2009, the rudimentary presentation of the idea of this project was published in “Indian Country Today”.
The spiritual cultures of the indigenous people were chosen as the main theme and basis of the program of the Monument-Museum because it is thanks to their spiritual cultures and the strength of the faith and traditions of the ancestors that the Indigenous people survived not only an unequal struggle, but the harassment, forced assimilation, endless tyranny, and genocide brought by the European colonial powers.
The project has two major goals:
- To ensure that each visitor gets connected to the past of this land, to the lives of the Indigenous people, and gets attached to the inner genesis and beauty of their natural culture.
- To ensure that each visitor becomes aware of the tragedy of the Indigenous people and leaves the Monument-Museum with a spirit of compassion that promises the courage and humanity to never let such a tragedy happen again.
The future of Native Americans primarily depends on themselves, their spiritual energy, their creative power, and their indigenous consciousness. Nature is the foundation of the life of the Indigenous people and spiritual cultures are the structure of their being. Preserving cultures is as natural and necessary as preserving nature. Therefore, through this project, the nature and spiritual cultures of their people will be elevated to an unprecedented level and presented not in the style of a colonized museum but in the light of the Native American Spirit.
Director of Architectural & Philosophical Concepts: Paul Poloz
Director of Architectural Design: Paul Poloz
Board of Councilors
To be announced.