After a Museum Explores Homes Destroyed by US-Made Munitions, House Republicans Demand Information on Smithsonian’s Curatorial Process

Two Republican members of the House of Representatives want to know more about how the Smithsonian Institution evaluates proposed exhibits after a museum display tied US-made munitions to the destruction of civilian’s homes in conflict zones.

“The Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency is concerned that the Smithsonian Institution (Smithsonian) does not properly review proposed exhibits in its museums,” says a letter to outgoing Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch III, penned by subcommittee chairman Tim Burchett of Tennessee along with Georgia’s Brian Jack.

The move comes in the wake of a July hearing at which Anthea Hartig, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) was grilled by lawmakers, including Burchett, who demanded to know, “Dr. Hartig, are you America first? Do you love America?” Burchett and Jack say that at that hearing, members requested information on the Smithsonian’s content review process but say the institution has failed to provide it.

The Smithsonian has been a target of Republicans since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, when he wrote an executive order taking aim at the institution. The national network of museums and research institutions receives the majority of its funding through Congress. As recently as September, the White House accused the institution of discrimation and threatened to cut federal grants.

In the letter, the congressmen direct their ire at one display in particular, which appeared in “Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial” (2024–25) at New York’s Cooper Hewitt. “Patterns of Life” was a commission by London-born data journalist Mona Chalabi, now living in New York, and visual investigation practice SITU Research, established in Brooklyn in 2005. Their project, as described on the museum’s website, “reflects on the experiences of three individuals whose homes were destroyed by domicide—the widespread and systematic destruction of housing due to military conflict, urban development, or social upheaval.” The United Nations, the creators point out, is reviewing domicide for potential recognition as a crime under international law.

Chalabi and SITU’s display investigated and documented homes destroyed by US-manufactured weapons during airstrikes in Iraq in 2015, Syria in 2016, and Gaza in 2023. Architectural models showed people’s homes in those three places, representing heirlooms, books, toys and other household objects to “celebrate the intimate lives within those homes.”

Chalabi and SITU’s presentation was just one of 25 projects commissioned for the exhibition, some by visual artists including La Vaughn Belle, Hugh Hayden, Joiri Minaya, Robert Earl Paige, William Scott, Amie Siegel, and Renée Stout; also on the roster were photographers, designers, interdisciplinary collectives, and others. Overall, the show aimed to “explore design’s role in shaping the physical and emotional realities of home across the United States, US Territories, and Tribal Nations.”

“The Smithsonian Institution was founded for the increase and diffusion of knowledge,” say the lawmakers in their letter. “Its content review procedures need to be sufficiently robust to prevent blatantly partisan and inaccurate exhibitions.”

In at least one way, the display doesn’t seem entirely to fit the lawmakers’ characterization as one-sided. Says the museum, “‘Patterns of Life’ illuminates the complex role of the US in this issue, as it stands as the leading financial contributor to United Nations peacekeeping initiatives, but also the world’s largest producer of arms.”

Burchett and Jack say in their letter that the installation was “originally proposed to showcase 10 New York City buildings compressed into a single room,” but that “this originally uncontroversial proposal was turned into a display of homes destroyed by American made munitions in various military engagements against ISIS and other terrorist organizations.” They object to the organizers’ wish, as they say the Smithsonian described it, “to portray American military doctrine and even America’s founding as being intertwined with ‘domicide,’ defined as ‘the massive and deliberate destruction of homes in order to cause human suffering.’”

Neither the Cooper Hewitt nor the Smithsonian Institution immediately responded to a request for comment.