Raymond Bulambula

Visiting Fellow Raymond Bulambula guides a UVA art student in making a "Marratjirri" Morning Star Pole.

Fayerweather Studio

Fayerweather Hall, McIntire Department of Art at the University of Virginia

KR Banner

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia

Fralin

The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia

Indigenous Music of Brazil: Djuena Tikuna

A Talk and Q&A
Monday, March 22, 2021
2:00- 3:00 PM EST

Born in Umariaçu in the Alto Rio Solimões region, vocalist and songwriter Djuena belongs to the Tikuna, Brazil’s largest Indigenous Amazonian ethnic group. Having learned her art form from her mother, who learned from her grandmother, who, in turn, learned from her ancestors, Djuena identifies as “singer of the Indigenous movement”. Her own lyrics are full of activist spirit and speak of matters dear to her community, such as the environment and the demarcation of lands. More importantly, she sings in the Tikuna language, which, for her, is a political choice.

Djuena’s interpretation of the Brazilian National Anthem was featured at the Indigenous World Games in 2015 and at the opening of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. In 2017, she launched her first album Tchautchiüãne (My Community) and performed it at the Amazon Theater in Manaus, making her the first Indigenous singer to perform there in over 120 years. In 2019 she toured Europe, and released her new project, Wiyaegü (Fished People) featuring a CD, book, and documentary. 

***Program will be conducted in Portuguese. This event is hosted by PORT 3559: Advanced Portuguese: Music, Literature, and Film, with professor Lilian Feitosa. Click here to log in to Zoom (Meeting ID: 915 1102 0731 Passcode: 790641)

 

Anita Fields: Artist Talk

Wednesday, April 7, 2021
6:00 PM EST, online event

Born in Oklahoma, Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee) creates works of clay and textile that reflect Osage worldviews, including notions of duality, earth and sky, and male and female. In an effort to understand our shared existence, Fields asks viewers to consider other ways of seeing and being, and she employs heavily textured layers and distorted writing to reference the complex layers and distortion of truths found in the written history of Indigenous cultures. Landscapes, environment, and the powerful influences of nature are themes found throughout her work, reflecting how we understand our surroundings and visualize our place within the world, time, place, and how the earth holds the memory of cultures who once called a specific terrain home.   
 
Fields just received the prestigious 2021 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, and is currently 2017-2020 fellow with the Kaiser Foundation’s Tulsa Artist Fellowship. She has been included in many exhibitions including the recent Hearts of Our People and Art for A New Understanding, and was featured in American CraftMs Magazine, American Style, and First American Art. Her work is in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum; Museum of Art and Design, New York; Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe; Heard Museum; Eiteljorg Museum; National Museum of the American Indian; Osage Tribal Museum; Hood Museum; Fred Jones Museum of Art; Sam Noble Museum; National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum; State of Oklahoma Art Collection; among others.

Registration is required: register at https://virginia.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iq4wwq13Tg-ZVmpzYp9AnQ

You can also drop in to her class visit on March 23 from 1:00- 3:00 PM EST by logging into Zoom at https://virginia.zoom.us/j/98454067491?pwd=UHByN3FGZE50bEl3dG5SakhoMkc1UT09 (Meeting ID: 984 5406 7491 and Passcode: 072040).

image: Anita Fields, When Considering the Earth and Sky
Clay, slips, gold luster glaze, 2020
44 x 33 x 1 1/2 in.
© Anita Fields

Anita Fields: "Osage Arts and Artists"

Tuesday, March 23, 2021
1:00 - 3:00 PM EST, online event

Join us for a conversation about Osage arts with Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee). Born in Oklahoma, Fields is a visual artist in clay and textile whose work reflects Osage worldviews, including notions of duality, earth and sky, and male and female. In an effort to understand our shared existence, Fields asks viewers to consider other ways of seeing and being, and she employs heavily textured layers and distorted writing to reference the complex layers and distortion of truths found in the written history of Indigenous cultures. Landscapes, environment, and the powerful influences of nature are themes found throughout her work, reflecting how we understand our surroundings and visualize our place within the world, time, place, and how the earth holds the memory of cultures who once called a specific terrain home.   
 
Fields just received the prestigious 2021 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, and is currently 2017-2020 fellow with the Kaiser Foundation’s Tulsa Artist Fellowship. She has been included in many exhibitions including the recent Hearts of Our People and Art for A New Understanding. Her work is in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum; Museum of Art and Design, New York; Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe; Heard Museum; Eiteljorg Museum; National Museum of the American Indian; Osage Tribal Museum; Hood Museum; Fred Jones Museum of Art; among others.

Fields is a Mellon Indigenous Arts Visiting Fellow. Please join this conversation with students in UVA professor Adriana Greci Green's Indigenous North American Arts class on March 23 by logging into Zoom at https://virginia.zoom.us/j/98454067491?pwd=UHByN3FGZE50bEl3dG5SakhoMkc1UT09 (Meeting ID: 984 5406 7491 and Passcode: 072040).

She will also offer an artist talk on April 7. Look for the registration link at https://indigenousarts.as.virginia.edu/anita-fields-artist-talk

Left: Anita Fields, Osage Woman’s Ribbonwork Hand Blanket, 2002
Right: Anita Fields, Osage Wedding Hat, commercial top hat, dyed feathers, thread, dowel rods, waxed twine, satin ribbon, 2019
© Anita Fields

Carla Jaimes Betancourt on "The Ancient Amazon"

Monday, March 22, 2021
9:00 AM EST, online event

Please join us for this classroom visit by Dr Carla Jaimes Betancourt, who will speak on "The ancient Amazon: Pre-Columbian monumental architecture and the origins of complex societies in the Llanos de Mojos, Bolivia".

This presentation will provide an overview of the history of southwestern Amazon, which dates back at least 10,000 years. We will focus on the monumental and cultural achievements of two specific areas of study: (a) the ring ditches in the Northeast or Iténez region and (b) the monumental mounds to the Southeast of the Llanos de Moxos. Their configuration, landscape transformation, regional patterns and internal organization show a long and complex social dynamic that was not exempt from the influence of broader regional processes. From the analysis of different types of archaeological finds from excavations of three monumental mounds and three ringditches, as well as surface material from more than a hundred archaeological sites, we offer a diachronic view of the reasons and timing of the sites’ transformations. This includes an assessment on the nature of monumentality. This presentation reflects on the political, ritual and defensive role of the mounds and ring ditches, and their relationship with the sudden transformations that occurred largely in Amazonia: the first during the first centuries A.D., and the second,at the beginning of the second millennium.

The event is hosted by UVA Professor Sonia Alconini's courses in ancient Archaeology. Log in to the zoom presentation at https://virginia.zoom.us/j/97409939357?pwd=WjdaU0pXYjJ3b0VwNGFlRDdIYjJJZz09
(Meeting ID: 974 0993 9357 and Passcode: 031470)

Bio

Carla Jaimes Betancourt is since 2016 lecturer at the Department of Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn in Germany, and co-director of the BASA Museum (Collection of the Americas in Bonn). She holds a degree in Archaeology from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, Bolivia, and has completed her PhD in Anthropology of the Americasat the University of Bonn. Her research focuses on social complexity in the southwestern Amazon, processes of expansion and ethnogenesis in the South American lowland. Her research also promotes collaborative archaeologywith local indigenous populations.She was also co-director of the German-Bolivian project in the Llanosof Mojosfor over a decade, which explored monumental mound construction and ring ditch systems in the tropical lowlands. She is currently part of the Human and Environmental Relations in the Pre-Columbian Amazon (HERCA) project.

A Conversation with America Meredith

Wednesday, March 31, 2021
3:30-5:30 PM EST

America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) is a visual artist, art writer, critic, independent curator, and the publishing editor of First American Art Magazine. Based in Norman, Oklahoma, she earned her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Shows of her paintings have been organized at the Bardo Fine Arts Center; Cherokee Heritage Center; Oklahoma State Capitol; Wheelwright Museum; and Southern Plains Indian Museum, among others. She has been included most recently in Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting (National Museum of the American Indian, New York City); Laughter and Resilience: Humor in Native American Art (Wheelwright Museum); and Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists (Minneapolis Institute of Art). Her work is held in the National Museum of the American Indian, Eiteljorg Museum, Cherokee Nation Historical Society, Heard Museum, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Tweed Museum of Art, Southern Plains Indian Museum, and the National Collection of Contemporary Indian Arts (IAIA).

Meredith is a Mellon Indigenous Arts Visiting Fellow. She will hold a conversation on Wednesday, March 31, 3:30-5:30 pm EST, with students in the Intermediate/ Advanced painting course led by UVA professor Neal Rock. Sign in for this zoom conversation at https://virginia.zoom.us/j/98656028547?pwd=WTE0NVhvelFub2NKZmhyaDJhTEFsZz09  (Meeting ID: 986 5602 8547 and Passcode: 068963)

She will also offer an artist talk on March 24, 6:00 PM EST. Find the registration link at https://indigenousarts.as.virginia.edu/america-meredith-artist-talk

Image at left: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Ayvdaqualosgv Adasegogisdi (Thunder's Victory), egg tempera on panel, 2003, 12 × 10 in., private collection © America Meredith

America Meredith: Artist Talk

Wednesday, March 24, 2021
6:00 PM EST, online event

America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) is a visual artist, art writer, critic, independent curator, and the publishing editor of First American Art Magazine. Based in Norman, Oklahoma, she earned her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Shows of her paintings have been organized at the Bardo Fine Arts Center; Cherokee Heritage Center; Oklahoma State Capitol; Wheelwright Museum; and Southern Plains Indian Museum, among others. She has been included most recently in Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting (National Museum of the American Indian, New York City); Laughter and Resilience: Humor in Native American Art (Wheelwright Museum); and Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists (Minneapolis Institute of Art). Her work is held in the National Museum of the American Indian, Eiteljorg Museum, Cherokee Nation Historical Society, Heard Museum, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Tweed Museum of Art, Southern Plains Indian Museum, and the National Collection of Contemporary Indian Arts (IAIA).

Meredith is a Mellon Indigenous Arts Visiting Fellow.

Registration for this free webinar is required. Register at https://virginia.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gmH5DntvQIy2zT80YbGouA

In addition to her artist talk on March 24, Meredith will hold a conversation on Wednesday, March 31, 3:30-5:30 pm EST, with students in the Intermediate/Advanced painting course with UVA professor Neal Rock. Sign in for this zoom conversation at https://virginia.zoom.us/j/98656028547?pwd=WTE0NVhvelFub2NKZmhyaDJhTEFsZz09  (Meeting ID: 986 5602 8547 and Passcode: 068963)

Left: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Mary Golda Ross: Ad Astra Per Astra, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40 in., collection of the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian. © America Meredith.

Indigenous Art Perspectives on Nuclear Fallout

Thursday, March 11, 2021
7:00pm EST, virtual event

Indigenous Art Perspectives on Nuclear Fallout

In this webinar discussion, Indigenous artists Will Wilson (Diné/Navajo) and Yhonnie Scarce (Kokatha/Nukunu) will share their artworks that address nuclear testing on Indigenous lands in the United States and Australia respectively, as well as the deep and lasting impact it had on the First Nations people of those lands. For introductory resources on these histories, click here for Trinity in the USA and click here for Maralinga in Australia. Elizabeth Wise, a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma who is completing her thesis on this topic, will moderate the discussion.

This program is co-presented by The Fralin Museum of Art, the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, and the UVA Mellon Indigenous Arts Initiative.

Register at this link, or at kluge-ruhe.org

   

Left image: Will Wilson, Shiprock Disposal Cell, Shiprock, NM, Navajo Nation, 2020.

Right image: Yhonnie Scarce, Thunder Raining Poison, 2015.

Alaska Native Reclamation and the Persistence of Indigenous Aesthetics

Talk by Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
1:00 - 3:00 pm EST, virtual event

Please join us for a free talk offered via Zoom by Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi (Alutiiq) on 'Alaska Native Reclamation and the Persistence of Indigenous Aesthetics.'

Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi is an Alutiiq art historian based in Homer, Alaska. She focuses her research on Alaska Native arts, Indigenous aesthetics, cultural revitalization, and the representation of Indigenous identity in art. Jackinsky-Sethi enjoys working with rural communities in Alaska to help develop community-based arts program through her work at The CIRI Foundation, where she oversees a grant program dedicated to supporting customary Alaska Native arts practices. In addition, Jackinsky-Sethi is a curatorial consultant, writer, and occasional instructor of Alaska Native art history at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She completed her PhD in art history at the University of Washington in 2012.

Jackinsky-Sethi is a Mellon Indigenous Arts Visiting Fellow. Her Zoom presentation is hosted by ARTH3595: Indigenous North American Arts taught by Professor Adriana Greci Green. Log in to the talk using this link:
https://virginia.zoom.us/j/98278672705?pwd=Z0dJZVFmRXp4eVBFQWlFOU5zY0d5dz09

Meeting ID: 982 7867 2705
Passcode: 184179

Email cew9f@virginia.edu with questions.

Photo: Gut parkas hang in the breeze at Mekoryak, 1964. Steve McCutcheon, Steve McCutcheon Collection; Anchorage Museum, B90.14.4.02001.

 

Black History in Indian Country

Talk by Marilyn Vann
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
7:00pm EST, virtual event

UVA's Native American Student Union will be hosting Marilyn Vann for a virtual event discussing Black History in Indian Country in honor of Black history month. Marilyn Vann is a Cherokee Nation citizen and president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the 5 Civilized Tribes Association. She is currently running for Cherokee Nation Tribal Council in the at-large district. Vann was one of several participants in a series of lawsuits that eventually secured Cherokee Freedmen descendants full and equal citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. According to the association, "President Marilyn Vann has spoken on freedmen issues at the Federal Bar Association Indian Law Section Conference, as well as the University of California, Indiana University, University of Arkansas, University of Louisville, University of Kansas, University of Oklahoma and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation conference."

The event will be held over zoom and Facebook live. Join the event here:  https://fb.me/e/19xnu2ijA

Talk by America Meredith

Indigenous Artworks of the Southeast from 1400 CE to the Present
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
1:00 - 3:00 pm EST, virtual event

Please join us for a talk by America Meredith on Indigenous Artworks of the Southeast from 1400 CE to the Present.

America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) is the publishing editor of First American Art Magazine and an art writer, critic, visual artist, and independent curator, whose curatorial practice spans 28 years. Based in Norman, Oklahoma, she earned her MFA degree from the San Francisco Art Institute and taught Native art history at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe Community College, and Cherokee Humanities Course.

Meredith is a Mellon Indigenous Arts Visiting Fellow. This presentation on Zoom is hosted by ARTH 3595: Indigenous North American Arts with Professor Adriana Greci Green. Join the free talk here.

Save the date for her artist talk on March 24 at 6:00 pm, and an additional class visit on March 31, 3:30 - 5:30 pm.

Photo: Martha Berry (Cherokee Nation), “Fire Carrier’s Footsteps,” glass seed beads on wood, saved-edge stroud, leather, silk satin ribbon, 4 x 8 x 9 in. © Martha Berry. Photo: Dave Berry

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