From Berkeleyside
The Indigenous exhibit that Trump failed to stop
By Felicia Mello
A group of local Indigenous leaders and Lawrence Hall of Science researchers strolled through the lobby of the discovery-based UC Berkeley museum last week as workers put the finishing touches on its latest exhibit, “Yuutka” (The Place of the Acorn).
Replicas of black oak trees towered overhead, while California poppies, wild roses, yarrow, and black sage plants were projected on the floor and a creek and bridge were under construction nearby. A cartoon version of East Bay Ohlone matriarch Dolores Lameira smiled encouragingly from one wall as she coached visitors to the mixed reality experience on how to gather virtual acorns using baskets equipped with 3D sensors.
“It really looks like her,” commented Vincent Medina, her great-nephew and one of the project’s creators.
Yuutka is both the first mixed-reality display in the Lawrence’s history and the first to be designed in a novel collaboration with young people from the Ohlone community, whose traditional homeland the museum sits on...
Working with Medina and Trevino, the museum invited a group of Ohlone youth ages 7 to 22 to participate in the project. In a series of gatherings with museum researchers and Ohlone elders, the young people learned about their community’s traditions, then worked to turn some of the themes into exhibit prototypes with the help of a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Information [Kimiko Ryokai]...
Kimiko Ryokai is currently an Assistant Professor in the Berkeley I School and her research focuses primarily on human-computer interactions, user experience research, and design. In 2023, she began working with the Lawrence Hall of Science on a project to create mixed reality exhibits for Ohlone youth that would create a sense of ‘rightful presence’ for them.
