Trespassers Beware! OPENING DAY

Monument Unveiling & Celebration

August 30, 2025, 1-4pm

Activities:

• 1:00pm Installation open for viewing
• 1:30pm Wyandot Prayer and remarks from Wyandot Nation of Kansas, Monumenta, Omakyehstih Collective and Partners

• 1-3pm Refreshments for purchase at food trucks
• 1-4pm Wyandot crafts, museum exhibits, performances

Trespassers Beware! Fort Conley and Wyandot Women Warriors is a commemorative public art project that illuminates the story of the Wyandot Conley sisters who occupied the historic Wyandot National Burying Ground in Kansas City, Kansas, saving it from urban development and erasure. Their decades-long activism and legal arguments protected this sacred land and contributed to preservation and tribal sovereignty movements.

The Trespassers Beware! “mobile monument” re-imagines Fort Conley, a small dwelling the sisters built inside the Wyandot cemetery and lived in for years to defend their family’s sacred resting place. This monumental public art work is designed to travel and will be heading to multiple sites in the Kansas City metro and beyond.

Join the unveiling and celebration to meet the lead artists Omakyehstih Collective we are gathered together (Bettizane “BZ” Smith Mendidehtih (Wyandotte), Justine K. Smith (Wyandotte) and Rane Wilson (Wyandotte, Maya) plus Chief Judith Manthe, Wyandot Nation of Kansas and Neysa Page-Lieberman, Artistic Director of Monumenta, and be the first to tour the multimedia installation!

This event is free and open to the public.

Questions about the event: call the museum at 419-294-3857

Questions about Trespassers Beware: email [email protected]

Host or Publisher Monuments to Movements (M2M)