Summer at the Museum

The Dennos rolls out new exhibits (and a new look)

By Beth Milligan | June 27, 2026

It’s a big year for the Dennos Museum Center in Traverse City. In addition to celebrating its 35th anniversary—as well as the 75th anniversary of parent institution Northwestern Michigan College—the arts and cultural center will unveil a new look and four new exhibits this summer. Northern Express spoke with Dennos Executive Director & Chief Curator Craig Hadley about what museum visitors can expect.

Americans | June 19-Sept. 6, 2026

Coming to the Dennos as a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street and the National Museum of the American Indian, Americans arrived at an auspicious time as the country prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary.

Curated by Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche), Americans “highlights the ways in which American Indians have been part of the nation’s identity since before the country began and offers a new way of understanding a few familiar events,” according to the Dennos. That includes thought-provoking revelations on Thanksgiving, Pocahontas, the Trail of Tears, and the Battle of Little Bighorn.

The exhibit “invites visitors to explore this complicated history and to share local stories about Native American history and culture,” the Dennos states. While American Indians are about one percent of the U.S. population, their images—on commercial products, sports jerseys, in classic Westerns, and in TV episodes ranging from South Park to Seinfeld—are prolific. Americans will explore “how Indians have been embedded in unexpected ways in the history, popular culture, and identity of the United States,” according to the Dennos.

Hadley says the Dennos will serve as the “launching point” for the traveling exhibition in Michigan, which will make six other stops in Iron Mountain, Fowlerville, Stevensville, Big Rapids, Port Sanilac, and Hamtramck. Given the “strong presence” of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians in northern Michigan, Hadley says the exhibit was a natural fit to “highlight Indigenous history” during America’s Semiquincentennial.

“It provides an opportunity to not only celebrate American history but place it in the wider framework of what has happened over the past 250 years,” he says. “It’s being able to talk about American Indian history and contemporary American Indians…as well as the context of some of the struggles and past historical wrongs.”

In a fraught political climate that shadows even the country’s anniversary festivities, Hadley says the Smithsonian partnership offers an opportunity to be “celebratory” but also bring “critical lenses to unpacking some of the real challenges and difficult moments in American history.”

“The Smithsonian is armed to present that discourse, and that’s work the Dennos has always done,” he says. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to reflect but also provide that educational moment.”

In an interview with The Sun Magazine, curator Smith said of the exhibit: “Americans is only partly an exhibit about Indians; it’s also about what each visitor brings to it. It’s about how all our lives are inextricably entangled in American history.”

The exhibit is an example of the “rich array of resources” the Dennos has been able to access since becoming a Smithsonian affiliate in 2021. The partnership allows the museum to borrow artifacts, artworks, and other items that would otherwise be “tough for many communities to access” in northern Michigan, Hadley says.

Next up for the Dennos is pursuing its accreditation through the American Alliance of Museums, which only about five percent of museums achieve in the U.S., according to Hadley.

Caroline Monnet: This Old House Is All We Have | June 19-Sept. 6, 2026

In a thematic connection to Americans, Caroline Monnet—an interdisciplinary artist of Anishinaabe and French descent—will mount This Old House Is All We Have at the Dennos this summer.

The exhibit includes both a “photographic group portrait of eight Indigenous women and a child gathered within an enchanted forest” and a “series of sculptural works” balancing organic and industrial elements, according to the Dennos.

Hadley says Monnet uses contemporary materials, like household and construction items, and “infuses them with traditional geometric designs and patterns. She’s really interested in this conversation between, what does it mean to think about a contemporary home in light of history and her ancestors’ land, which was ceded or occupied. There’s a tension in these structures that look like they’re woven or traditionally built but are built with contemporary materials, like plastic.”

The exhibit prompted the Dennos to post an unusual call for volunteer gallery guards due to the fragile nature of a key centerpiece, a floor-to-ceiling structure that “occupies almost the entire center of the exhibit,” says Hadley.

“You can walk through it, and it’s beautiful, but it’s really delicate. It’s seductive in the aesthetic sense, so you really want to get close to it. Knowing that summer is peak tourism season, with lots of kids and young families, we want to make sure they stay safe and the artwork doesn’t get damaged.”

Xavi Bou: Echoes of Flight | June 19-Sept. 6, 2026

Xavi Bou’s Echoes of Flight “invites visitors to reconsider how we see the natural world,” according to the Dennos. Hadley says the artist is “interested in documenting movement and flight,” tracing the way the flight paths of birds “evolve and create organic shapes.”

Visitors will see a variety of installations depicting Bou’s unique photography, as well as a slow-motion film in the museum’s Dutmers Theater explaining how Bou captured his material. Museum staff “came across his work a number of years ago, and everybody had the same reaction: This is incredible,” Hadley says.

Reflections on Community: 75 Years of Student Voices | July 2026-Jan. 3, 2027

NMC students have been crucial to shaping the institution’s identity since the college’s inception in 1951. This exhibition “explores that legacy through their eyes—from student publications, campus memories, and firsthand accounts,” according to the Dennos. “Discover how NMC students documented their own history, tracing evolving passions, concerns, and daily experiences while navigating campus life, local events, and the larger world around them.”

The “student-centered” exhibit is designed as a tie-in with NMC’s 75th anniversary year, Hadley says.

Meet the New Dennos

The Dennos isn’t just getting new exhibits this summer. It’s getting a whole new brand.

Staff have been working since 2020 on a complete brand refresh, encompassing everything from a new logo to revised signage to an updated paint scheme. Ann Arbor firm Phire Group helped lead the process. Hadley said the previous Dennos look, developed in 2008, felt “dated and traditional” and no longer reflective of the museum’s modern direction. It also wasn’t harmonious with NMC’s brand, says Hadley.

“When NMC received grant funding to refresh its brand, that was an opportunity for us to align the Dennos refresh with the college’s,” he says. “There was never a concerted effort before to address how the two brands spoke to each other.”

Some of NMC’s refreshed colors are now included in the Dennos palette. Hadley says the new museum logo “feels more modern, fresh, and inviting,” adding it’s also easier to use from a “utility standpoint” in print and digital reproductions.

The new brand will be officially unveiled at the museum’s July 2 Summer Reception & Launch Party at 7pm (doors at 6:45pm), where the new summer exhibits will also be celebrated. Members are admitted for free; non-member admission is $10 and includes a drink ticket and passed appetizers. Attendees, who are encouraged to RSVP online at DennosMuseum.org, can snag merch featuring the new logo and check out revamped museum elements.

More updates, including an overhauled website and new banners along Front Street, will soon follow. “Over the next year, folks will see the rest of this rollout take shape,” says Hadley.