Since 2019, the Musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac has coordinated the CROYAN project (French Royal Collections from North America), developed in partnership with several French institutions and Native North American nations. This multidisciplinary research initiative focuses on the study and interpretation of nearly 350 objects collected in the 17th and 18th centuries in what are now Canada and the United States, during the period of New France.

By bringing together researchers, curators, artists, and Indigenous knowledge holders, the project promotes interdisciplinary collaboration around museum collections, archival sources, and ancestral territories, while also exploring new models of research, knowledge sharing, and museum practice.

An initial collaboration was carried out between 2019 and 2024 with members of the Seneca, Mohawk, Abenaki, and 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.

The symposium will bring together the French and Indigenous partners involved in the CROYAN project to share the results of research carried out over the past several years, while also reflecting critically on this collaborative experience. In parallel, scholars involved in similar initiatives in museums and cultural institutions in France, the United States, and Canada will present their methodologies, discuss the challenges they have encountered, and compare the collaborative frameworks developed in their respective institutions.

Through these exchanges, the symposium aims to foster dialogue on emerging scholarly and museological practices while strengthening collaborative partnerships between researchers, museums, and Native North American nations.