Since 2019, the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac has coordinated the CRoyAN project (French Royal Collections from North America), developed in collaboration with several French institutions and Native North American nations. This multidisciplinary and collaborative research focuses on the study and enhancement of a corpus of nearly 350 objects collected in the 17th and 18th centuries from what is now Canada and the United States, during the period of New France.
https://croyan.quaibranly.fr/en/the-project

An initial collaboration was carried out between 2019 and 2024 with members of the Seneca, Mohawk, Abenaki, and Huron-Wendat Nations, focusing on collections from Northeastern North America. This work led to a touring exhibition “Wampum: Beads of Diplomacy in New France,” shown at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac (2022), the Seneca Art & Culture Center in Victor, New York (2023), and the McCord Stewart Museum in Montreal (2023–2024).

A second project, titled “Reconnecting: Objects, Historical Memory and Territories of the Choctaw, Quapaw, Peoria and Miami Nations in the period of French Louisiana (1673-1763)” was launched in 2023. It involves collaboration with the key allies of the French in the Mississippi Valley during the 18th century: the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, the Quapaw Nation, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, and the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.

All French and Native American partners involved in the CRoyAN project will be invited to share the results of the research conducted within this framework, or to offer a critical reflection on this nearly six-year-long collaborative experience. Additional colleagues who have recently led or participated in major collaborative projects in museums in the United States and Canada will present their methodologies and the concrete outcomes of these initiatives. Their presentations will provide an opportunity for dialogue between North American and French specialists, with the aim of examining methodological and institutional differences between the countries involved. This will foster a collective reflection on the future of collaborative approaches, both in scientific research and within museums.