Mellon Indigenous Arts Program

Curated by Adriana Greci Green, Curator of Indigenous Arts of the Americas

Reflections: Native Art Across Generations brings together historic Native American art drawn from the collections of The Fralin Museum of Art with the work of several distinguished contemporary Native artists. This exhibition establishes connections between past and present creative traditions and forms, exploring the idea of legacy and the meanings and inspirations that works of art carry through the generations. The invited artists also provide personal perspectives that link their work with the aesthetic artistry, technical skill, cultural knowledge and mastery of media that sustain indigenous artistic practices. Artists today create within established formal traditions but are also fully engaged with contemporary art discourses of personal and cultural identity, place, and the legacies of colonization.

Exhibition Dates: May 24, 2018 - January 27, 2019

Image: Kay WalkingStick, Cherokee, b. 1935. Bear Paw Battlefield #2, 2003. Gouache and charcoal with encaustic on paper, 25 x 50 in (63.5 x 127 cm). Museum purchase with funds from the Graham Fund, University of Virginia Alumni Association, 2004.11. © Kay WalkingStick

Indigenous Ecologies: Interdisciplinary Conversations on Sovereignty, Justice, Indigenous Environmental Knowledge, Collaborative Research, and Community Care

Thursday April 12th – Wilson Hall 142

6pm-7.30pm - “New Constellations of Practice in the Humanities: Backbone, Earth-Keeping, Country, Oceania” 

A talk by Joni Adamson (Arizona State University, Department of English & Environmental Humanities, Senior Sustainability Scholar at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability)

Eight Humanities for the Environment Observatories around the world are networking humanists, social scientists and natural scientists to engage in wider conversations about the Anthropocene, which seek alternatives to teleological notions of progress. Four Observatories in four regions of the world have made indigenous concepts and diverse ontologies central to their discussions and projects.  This talk focuses on how these concepts (Backbone: North American Observatory; Earth-Keeping: African Observatory; Country: Australian-Pacific Observatory; and Oceania—Asian-Pacific Observatory) are contributing to new constellations of practice in the humanities that are piloted by associated networks.  

Friday April 13th – Brooks Hall Common Area

11am-12pm – Welcome and Meet & Greet

1-3pm – Panel and Discussion: Community Care for Country

• Marama Muru-Lanning (Waikato, Ngāti Maniapoto), University of Auckland, Anthropology, Director of the James Henare Maori Research Center, Tupuna Awa: People and Politics of the Waikato River
• Darren Ranco (Penobscot Indian Nation), University of Maine, Anthropology, Center for Sustainability, Director of Native American Research, Developing a Climate Adaptation Baseline for Wabanaki Tribal Nations: Diplomacy, Methods, and Priorities
• Edward Loure, Ujamaa Resource Trust, Community Land Rights Activist, Goldman Prize Recipient for 2016, We Call It Home: Collective Land Titles, Community Control, and Caring for Tanzania’s Maasai Steppe.

Friday April 13th – One West Range, Hotel A

6-8pm – Dinner and Book Talk 

Please join us for dinner and listen to Environmental Historian, Rosalyn LaPier talk about her book, Invisible Reality: Storytellers, Storytakers, and the Supernatural World of the Blackfeet.

 Saturday April 14th – Wilson Hall, 142

10am-12pm – Round Table: Knowledge Sovereignty and the Politics of Sciences

•  Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis), University of Montana, Environmental Studies and Research Associate, National Museum of  Natural History, Smithsonian Institute
• Kyle Powys Whyte (Citizen Potawatomi Nation), Michigan State University, Timnick Chair in the Humanities, Philosophy & Community Sustainability

This round table addresses the complex and contested histories of indigenous environmental knowledge and western hegemonic knowledge systems, with specific reference to the current “science wars.” Its point of departure is the Indigenous Science Declaration of Support for the 2017 March for Science, in conversation with two of its authors.See: https://www.esf.edu/indigenous-science-letter/Indigenous_Science_Declaration.pdf. 

1-3pm – Round Table: Flawed Environmental Justice and Human Rights Processes

• Ryan Emanuel (Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina), North Carolina State University, Center for Geospatial Analytics, Department of Forestry an Environmental Resources
• Elifuraha Laltaika, Matumaini University, Law Faculty, Director of Association for Law and Advocacy for Pastoralists, Member of the Permanent U.N. Forum on Indigenous Issues

This round table addresses the shortcomings of official legal arrangements meant to safeguard people’s rights to healthy environments and uphold the territorial sovereignty of indigenous communities. Its point of departure is Ryan Emanuel’s recent letter in Science concerning the inadequacy of environmental justice instruments related to the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6348/260.1) and Elifuraha Laltaika’s observation that regimes centered on the rights of individuals are inadequate to upholding the sovereignty of indigenous communities. This round table will also continue to address connections to indigenous environmental knowledge and community care.  

3:30-5pm – Round Table: Reflections & Futures

In this closing roundtable, invited speakers will offer frameworks and reflections for the future of interdisciplinary collaborations at UVA and beyond, particularly between the Humanities and Sciences, and in relation to indigenous communities. Among other perspectives and frameworks, this roundtable will revisit observatories/conservatories, environmental justice, indigenous environmental knowledges and sciences, memory, and resilience.

For more information about the symposium, contact Jim Igoe, jji2e@virginia.edu

Supporting Organizations

Virginia Environmental Humanities Colloquium - Page-Barbour Workshops - The Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation - Institute for Humanities and Global Culture - Environmental Thought and Practice - Department of Anthropology Speakers Series - Global Studies - Environmental Resilience Institute  - Global Water Initiative - Office for Diversity and Equity - Virginia Indian Programs-Virginia Humanities

Intersections: Place/Policy & Culture/Capitalism

A Native American Studies Symposium

April 5th & 6th 2018

This symposium, organized around the broad themes of place, policy, capitalism, and culture, is meant to evoke current directions in the field of Native American and Indigenous Studies. The purpose of this symposium, the first of its kind at the University of Virginia, is to bring together leading scholars across disciplines to share their current research, to begin a fruitful dialog among scholars and attendees, and to introduce the rich field of Native American and Indigenous Studies to the University of Virginia and the Charlottesville community. Therefore, students, faculty, staff, community members, and tribal members are welcome to attend and participate in discussion. 

Intersections: Place/Policy & Culture/Capitalism arrives on Grounds during a time of continued critical discussions on race, history, monuments, and memorialization after the events of August 2017, moving beyond the black-white binary. More, just weeks ago in an historic event, six Virginia Indian tribes received federal recognition when the president signed legislation that has passed both houses of Congress. Therefore, the aim of this symposium - to initiate conversation about a range of concepts, questions, and critical practices in the field that are often separated by disciplinary boundaries and institutional divisions becomes increasingly valuable, relevant, and timely.

Schedule

Thursday, April 5th, Hotel A

• 4pm: Welcome & Introductions
• 4:15-4:30: Monacan Blessing
• 4:30-6:00: Panel One: Native Studies at UVA (Thursday, April 5th @ 4:30pm)
  • ​Lee Bloch, University of Virginia, PhD Candidate, Anthropology, Animate Earth, Settler Ruins: Mound Landscapes and Decolonial Futures in the Native South
  • Heidi Nichols, University of Virginia, Graduate Student, Sociology, Settler Colonial Resignification and Indigenous Resurgence: Cultural Sovereignty in Hawai’i
  • Josh Wayt, University of Virginia, Graduate Student, Anthropology, Professional Elders: The transforming role of “language expert” in Dakota language activism
  • Victoria Clark (Nanticoke), University of Virginia, Graduate Student, Music, Assigning Indian Sounds: The Twentieth Century Indianist Movement and Musical Composition
• 6:15-8:00: Reception

Friday, April 6th, Harrison Small Auditorium

• 9:00am: Coffee and Pastries
• 9:15-10:45 Panel Two: Native Economies (Friday, April 6th @ 9:15am)
  • ​Brian Hosmer, University of Tulsa, Native Americans and Marketplaces: What have we learned? Why does it matter?
  • William Bauer (Wailacki and Concow of the Round Valley Indian Tribes), University of Nevada Las Vegas, Emancipating and Freeing Indians: American Indians, Sovereignty, and American Capitalism from the Gold Rush to Trump
  • Jessica Cattelino, University of California Las Angeles, High-stakes Gaming at (Nearly) 40: State of the Field
  • Doug Miller, Oklahoma State University, “I Can Learn Any Kind of Work”: Native American Urbanization and Labor in the Twentieth Century
• 10:45-11:00: Break
• 11:00-12:00: Panel Three: Native Representations (Friday, April 6th @ 11:00am)
  • ​Jean O’Brien (White Earth Ojibwe), University of Minnesota, Indigenous Public Intellectuals versus PBS’s “Colonial House”: A Reckoning
  • Lisa Blee, Wake Forest University, Memory Constructions and Narrative Disruptions on Plymouth’s Waterfront
  • Coll Thrush, University of British Columbia, Indigenous Futures and Pasts at the Heart of Empire: Notes from Indigenous London
• 12:00-1:30: Lunch
• 1:30-3:00: Panel Four: Native Policies (Friday, April 6th @ 1:30pm)
  • ​Jody TallBear (Dakota/Arapaho), Attorney, Tribal Policy Advocacy Within a Federal Agency
  • Heidi Stark (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), University of Victoria, Contested Consent and the Divesture of Indigenous Peoples of Their Land and Sovereignty
  • J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (Kanaka Maoli), Wesleyan University, Rules of Recognition and the Contested Politics of Hawaiian Sovereignty
  • Kasey Keeler (Tuolumne Me-Wuk/Citizen Potawatomi), University of Virginia, The Snyder Act and the Federal Housing Administration: Federal Responsibilities 
• 3:00-3:30: Break
• 3:30-4:45: Keynote by Robert Warrior (Osage), University of Kansas

Contact Kasey Keeler for more information: krk8q@virginia.edu.

Indigenous Ecologies: Interdisciplinary Conversations on Sovereignty, Justice, Indigenous Environmental Knowledge, Collaborative Research, and Community Care

Thursday April 12th – Wilson Hall 142

6pm-7.30pm - “New Constellations of Practice in the Humanities: Backbone, Earth-Keeping, Country, Oceania” 

A talk by Joni Adamson (Arizona State University, Department of English & Environmental Humanities, Senior Sustainability Scholar at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability)

Eight Humanities for the Environment Observatories around the world are networking humanists, social scientists and natural scientists to engage in wider conversations about the Anthropocene, which seek alternatives to teleological notions of progress. Four Observatories in four regions of the world have made indigenous concepts and diverse ontologies central to their discussions and projects.  This talk focuses on how these concepts (Backbone: North American Observatory; Earth-Keeping: African Observatory; Country: Australian-Pacific Observatory; and Oceania—Asian-Pacific Observatory) are contributing to new constellations of practice in the humanities that are piloted by associated networks.  

Friday April 13th – Brooks Hall Common Area

11am-12pm – Welcome and Meet & Greet

1-3pm – Panel and Discussion: Community Care for Country

• Marama Muru-Lanning (Waikato, Ngāti Maniapoto), University of Auckland, Anthropology, Director of the James Henare Maori Research Center, Tupuna Awa: People and Politics of the Waikato River
• Darren Ranco (Penobscot Indian Nation), University of Maine, Anthropology, Center for Sustainability, Director of Native American Research, Developing a Climate Adaptation Baseline for Wabanaki Tribal Nations: Diplomacy, Methods, and Priorities
• Edward Loure, Ujamaa Resource Trust, Community Land Rights Activist, Goldman Prize Recipient for 2016, We Call It Home: Collective Land Titles, Community Control, and Caring for Tanzania’s Maasai Steppe.

Friday April 13th – One West Range, Hotel A

6-8pm – Dinner and Book Talk 

Please join us for dinner and listen to Environmental Historian, Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis) talk about her book, Invisible Reality: Storytellers, Storytakers, and the Supernatural World of the Blackfeet.

 Saturday April 14th – Wilson Hall, 142

10am-12pm – Round Table: Knowledge Sovereignty and the Politics of Sciences

• Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis), University of Montana, Environmental Studies and Research Associate, National Museum of  Natural History, Smithsonian Institute
• Kyle Powys Whyte (Citizen Potawatomi Nation), Michigan State University, Timnick Chair in the Humanities, Philosophy & Community Sustainability

This round table addresses the complex and contested histories of indigenous environmental knowledge and western hegemonic knowledge systems, with specific reference to the current “science wars.” Its point of departure is the Indigenous Science Declaration of Support for the 2017 March for Science, in conversation with two of its authors.See: https://www.esf.edu/indigenous-science-letter/Indigenous_Science_Declaration.pdf. 

1-3pm – Round Table: Flawed Environmental Justice and Human Rights Processes

• Ryan Emanuel (Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina), North Carolina State University, Center for Geospatial Analytics, Department of Forestry an Environmental Resources
• Elifuraha Laltaika, Matumaini University, Law Faculty, Director of Association for Law and Advocacy for Pastoralists, Member of the Permanent U.N. Forum on Indigenous Issues

This round table addresses the shortcomings of official legal arrangements meant to safeguard people’s rights to healthy environments and uphold the territorial sovereignty of indigenous communities. Its point of departure is Ryan Emanuel’s recent letter in Science concerning the inadequacy of environmental justice instruments related to the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6348/260.1) and Elifuraha Laltaika’s observation that regimes centered on the rights of individuals are inadequate to upholding the sovereignty of indigenous communities. This round table will also continue to address connections to indigenous environmental knowledge and community care.  

3:30-5pm – Round Table: Reflections & Futures

In this closing roundtable, invited speakers will offer frameworks and reflections for the future of interdisciplinary collaborations at UVA and beyond, particularly between the Humanities and Sciences, and in relation to indigenous communities. Among other perspectives and frameworks, this roundtable will revisit observatories/conservatories, environmental justice, indigenous environmental knowledges and sciences, memory, and resilience.

For more information about the symposium, contact Jim Igoe, jji2e@virginia.edu

Supporting Organizations

Virginia Environmental Humanities Colloquium - Page-Barbour Workshops - The Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation - Institute for Humanities and Global Culture - Environmental Thought and Practice - Department of Anthropology Speakers Series - Global Studies - Environmental Resilience Institute  - Global Water Initiative - Office for Diversity and Equity - Virginia Indian Programs-Virginia Humanities

Please RSVP