New Health Exhibition Announced At Trinidad History Museum

From History Colorado: The iconic Borderlands of Southern Colorado exhibition that opened almost one year ago at the El Pueblo History Museum will expand to the Trinidad History Museum with Borderlands of Southern Colorado: Remedios, Medicine and Health. Opening on May 3, this exhibit continues to focus on the borderlands while introducing a new theme that explores the intersections of health, culture, heritage, spirituality and landscapes through stories that are relevant to the Trinidad, southern Colorado and northern New Mexico community.

The Trinidad History Museum is a museum of History Colorado, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization and an agency of the State of Colorado. History Colorado strives to be a place of belonging for all Coloradans and to serve as a platform for community connection and diversity.

“How we manage our land parallels how we manage our health and our bodies. In this borderlands space of southern Colorado, we can understand our relationship to health and well-being – all within the context of coexistence and conflict of culture, nature and borders,” said Kirby Stokes, director of Trinidad History Museum. “This exhibit explores the tapestry of multicultural medical traditions, histories and geographies of Las Animas County.”

Borderlands of Southern Colorado: Remedios, Medicine and Health was created with input from community members, families, scholars, archaeologists and historians from southern Colorado, who participated in meetings during its nearly three-year planning process and who shared their stories about traditional and home-based health practices. From childbirth to spirituality, religion, nature and coal mining, themes include relationships with the land, as well as relationships with doctors, grandmothers, nature and the community.

“We are eager to create conversation and expand our cultural, environmental and theoretical knowledge of borderlands and the impact of southern Colorado. We are proud to collaborate and share this history with a broader audience to expand the way Coloradoans understand the history of our state and community,” said Dawn DiPrince, chief community museum officer of History Colorado. “We are sharing stories that connect the past with contemporary issues and that influence U.S. history. More than ever, Colorado’s historical stories of land, health and medicine are just as relevant today.”

The new exhibit is part of a long-term strategy of History Colorado in community engagement, memory work, lectures and artifacts around the topic of borderlands, which includes an expansion into several of its museums, covering this subject from different angles and themes. Currently, Borderlands of Southern Colorado is at History Colorado’s El Pueblo History Museum; and as announced, Borderlands of Southern Colorado: Remedios, Medicine and Health will soon be open at its Trinidad History Museum. As part of its integrated commitment, History Colorado will extend Borderlands of Southern Colorado to a third community museum, with the opening of Borderlands of Southern Colorado: Shadows of Slavery at Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center in Summer 2019, focusing on indigenous slavery in southern Colorado. While details will be announced later this year, according to DiPrince, “Very few museums in the country are telling this story, and people are going to feel very connected to the emotions of this culturally sensitive theme.”