The Museum of Kansas City is planning an exciting year ahead, including: new major exhibitions, new media interactives; World Cup activities celebrating Kansas City as a host city; and monthly public and educational programs for ongoing engagement with our community.
In celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary and in anticipation of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, The Museum of Kansas City will present two exhibitions that honor Indigenous history, cultural heritage, and art from Missouri and the surrounding region.
- Homeland: The Osage in Missouri
- Voices Now: Contemporary Native American Art
Both of these exhibitions were organized by The Museum of Kansas City to recognize the 250th anniversary of the United States through the extraordinary history, culture, and art of America’s Indigenous people and particularly those with ancestral connections to the Kansas City area. These exhibitions serve as cornerstone events in The Museum of Kansas City’s 2026 commemorative programming, offering visitors the opportunity to engage with America’s complex, layered histories through Indigenous storytelling, tradition, and artistic innovation.
Homeland: The Osage in Missouri
On view March 21, 2026 – February 21, 2027
Free Admission | No tickets required
The Missouri Humanities Council (MHC) has awarded a grant to The Museum of Kansas City to support Homeland: The Osage in Missouri. The MHC is the only statewide agency in Missouri devoted exclusively to humanities education for citizens of all ages. It has served as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities since 1971.
Osage history is deeply rooted in the waterways and landscapes of Missouri, which is the ancestral home of the 𐓏𐒰𐓓𐒰𐓓𐒷 | Wahzhazhe (Osage People), originally known as Ni-u-konska, the People of the Middle Waters. Although the Osage Nation is centralized in what is now the state of Oklahoma, their spiritual and cultural connection to Missouri endures. Homeland: The Osage in Missouri explores and celebrates the history, heritage, worldview, and cultural continuity of the Osage people.
Organized by The Museum of Kansas City, Homeland: The Osage in Missouri is curated by Jimmy Lee Beason II, a citizen of the Osage Nation and professor of Indigenous and American Indian Studies at Haskell Indian Nations University. Featuring materials from the Museum’s collection and items loaned to the Museum, this exhibition centers the Osage culture and worldview while exploring how the Osage were affected by and adapted to European settlement and industrialization.
Homeland is located on the changing gallery on the second floor of Corinthian Hall.
Voices Now: Contemporary Native American Art
On view March 21, 2026 – February 21, 2027
Free Admission | No tickets required
Kansas City’s Jedel Family Foundation has awarded a grant to The Museum of Kansas City to present Voices Now: Contemporary Native American Art. Established by well-known art collector and businessman, Harrison Jedel, the Foundation supports a wide range of educational, medical, and arts organizations in the Kansas City area and beyond. This groundbreaking exhibition marks the first contemporary Native art showcase of its kind in Kansas City, celebrating the living history, voices, and visions of Indigenous communities throughout the region.
Organized by The Museum of Kansas City, Voices Now is co-curated by Dr. Jami Powell, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs & Curator of Indigenous Art at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, and Bruce Hartman, Founding Executive Director & Chief Curator (retired) of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City.
Voices Now features 15 artists with a variety of tribal affiliations as well as a wide range of artistic mediums and expressions. Fittingly, the exhibition is intergenerational and even includes extended family members. Artists include Norman Akers, Julie Buffalohead, Bruce Caesar, June Carpenter, Lydia Cheshewalla, Tom Farris, Anita Fields, Yatika Starr Fields, Chris Pappan, Wendy Ponca, Ryan RedCorn, Addie Roanhorse, Richard Zane Smith, Jason Wesaw, and Holly Wilson. Artists in Voices Now have garnered national and international acclaim. Their works address themes of beauty, identity and belonging, the land and environmental issues, colonialism, resistance and subversion, appropriation, relationality, futurity, and more. Their collective voices speak not only to Native America, but America today.
Voices Now is located in the changing gallery on the third floor expands beyond this gallery with installations in Homeland, the second-floor corridor, and the grand stair landing.
Norman Akers, “Staying Afloat” (2025), oil on canvas, 50″ x 46.” This work was acquired by the Museum in 2025 and will be included in Voices Now: Contemporary Native American Art.