Jonathan Orozco | Land Acknowledgements in Cultural Institutions
Jonathan Orozco, (photo by Tom White)
Jonathan Orozco is an art historian and independent arts writer in Omaha, Nebraska. He received a BA in art history from the University of Nebraska Omaha in 2020. He regularly contributes to The Reader, and has published reviews in White Hot Magazine and NAD NOW, the Journal of The National Academy of Design. Orozco also runs a blog called Art Discourses, which primarily covers Midwest artists and exhibitions.
Let's say that one day, you really need to see some art, so you decide to visit a museum. Maybe on this day, you expect to pass the front desk and dive right into the galleries, but instead, you’re confronted by a plaque. It reads something like, “This museum stands and operates on the homelands of many Native American peoples.” You pause and think, this is true, but what does it have to do with cultural institutions? The sign continues, “Through many coercive and broken treaties, this land was forcibly taken. We pay our respects to all Indigenous people, past, present, and future, and we will work to disrupt the ongoing process of settler colonialism.”
Settler colonialism... What does that even mean? And why is this sign even up? What does this have to do with art? I’d say your confusion is justified, especially if you haven’t encountered a Land Acknowledgement before.
You’re likely to see signs with Land Acknowledgements, or hear one recited, if you visit a museum or attend an event at a cultural institution in the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. These four countries share a common history of settler colonialism, a process that seeks to replace an original population with another one. This process is one of ongoing violence and erasure. Indigenous people were forcibly removed and dispossessed from their ancestral homelands. Museums and other cultural institutions in these countries, then, sit on top of Indigenous land, land that was effectively stolen. To recognize this history, many cultural institutions are adopting Land Acknowledgements.
Interactive map of Native territories produced by the Canadian nonprofit Native Land, (screenshot from native-land.ca)
Land Acknowledgemets are formal statements that recognize the history of Indigenous people, and their relationship to the land, at the start of an event, or presented on a plaque or website. Usually, museums and other institutions name the Indigenous peoples whose ancestral homelands they stand on, as well as mention treaties and other events that recount the history of the land. Land Acknowledgements shouldn’t be used as a rhetorical vehicle to instantly resolve centuries of injustice. Instead, they can and should be opportunities to learn about Indigenous Sovereignty, the LANDBACK movement, and environmental justice.
Inspiring action is far more important than letting a Land Acknowledgement enter one ear and leave through another, but more often than not, very little is done by cultural institutions to honor them. This is unfortunately all too common.
I recently spoke to Nathaniel Ruleaux, an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation and an artist in Omaha, about his take on Land Acknowledgements and what should be done to respect them. He told me, “land acknowledgements are important because it acknowledges that we [Indigenous people] have existed, but I think the thing that people need to get better at is using Land Acknowledgements to show people that we exist here right now.”
He went on to say, “Native people in this country have gone through genocide at the hands of the U.S. government, and Land Acknowledgements are the least people can do, but it's not enough to correct harms. If you're just looking up names and saying it before your event, you can make it sound like these are people from the past.”
Ruleux is referring to the potential for erasure in land acknowledgements. Delivering a land acknowledgement as a “thank you” implies that you’re speaking to someone - so a specific person or group should be named. Otherwise, if you’re speaking to Native peoples in the abstract, you imply that they’re no longer here, and that’s just not true.
To underscore his point, take for example a 2019 case in Canada, where the organization, Pride Toronto presented a public Land Acknowledgement with no mention of Indigenous territories or First Nations peoples. Even worse, the pseudo-spiritual and essentialist tone of the statement co-opted and appropriated core tenants of many Indigenous ways of being, with phrases like “Let us journey together,” and “build a relationship with Mother Earth” — the implicit racism of white supremacy.
Land Acknowledgements not only have to be intentionally constructed, but they also have to be genuine commitments to change. Unfortunately, in many cultural institutions that commitment ends at the door. They become hollow shells of performative activism in the absence of meaningful structural change.
Yale Union, Portland, Oregon.
One example of a fairly young art center bucking the trend comes from Yale Union in Portland. The organization proposed transferring its land and building to the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation in 2018 and was approved one year later. In 2021, Yale Union will dissolve its nonprofit and will reopen as the Center for Native Arts and Cultures. This is a rare example of what a galleries and museums can do. It opens up an important question about institutional responsibility, particularly for cultural institutions who signal commitments to anti-racism, equity, and justice on their social media platforms, in their programming, or through a Land Acknowledgement.
Other ways to honor a Land Acknowledgement might include developing more Indigenous-focused programming, or hiring and retaining more Indigenous staff at all levels of an organization. In our conversation, Ruleux talked about Indigenous people in other decision making roles at cultural institutions saying, “if you're an organization, there should be a Native person on your board.”
I want to leave you with an anecdote from a former professor of mine. It went something like, “Say I accidentally step on your toe. I may not have intentionally meant to hurt you, but you’re still in pain.” To me, Land Acknowledgements are a way to recognize this pain, this historical trauma, but they can only do so much to make amends. They’re not an end, but a start.