Conference: The CROYAN Project – New Collaborative Approaches in North American Indigenous Contexts

This international conference accompanies the opening of the exhibition “1725. Amerindian Allies at the Court of Louis XV” at the Château de Versailles (25 November 2025 – 3 May 2026). It will serve as a platform to exchange on new scientific and museological practices, with the goal of strengthening and promoting collaborative approaches between researchers, museums, and North American Indigenous nations.

Launched in 2019 and coordinated by the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, the CRoyAN project (Royal Collections of North America) studies and showcases about 350 objects collected in the 17th–18th centuries in New France. Over the past six years, it has involved collaborations with nations such as the Seneca, Mohawk, Abenaki, Huron-Wendat, Choctaw, Quapaw, Peoria, and Miami, leading to exhibitions in Paris, New York, and Montréal.

The colloquium will bring together French and Indigenous partners of the project to share research results and reflect critically on this collaborative experience. Scholars from Canada and the United States will also present recent large-scale collaborative museum projects, fostering dialogue on methodological and institutional differences and exploring the future of collaborative approaches in both research and museums.

For more information in French, please click here.